NCAAW: Arrival of Texas, Oklahoma to make the SEC even more competitive

The home of the last three national champions, the SEC, best conference in women’s college basketball, looks to be even better in 2024-25.

Texas and Oklahoma arrive from the Big 12, prepared to challenge South Carolina’s supremacy. With new head coaches, Kentucky and Tennessee also will be rising threats. And even after three SEC players were selected in the first round of the WNBA Draft, talent abounds, with transfers and recruits ready to make their mark.

Here’s a look at what’s next for the SEC:

The arrival of Red River rivals

Although there are plenty of reasons to protest the football-centric realignment that has shaken college sports, the changes should at least be fun for fans of SEC women’s basketball.

Texas and Oklahoma significantly will increase the already high quality of the SEC. The Longhorns were the Big 12 Tournament champions and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, advancing all the way to the Elite Eight. The Sooners captured the Big 12 regular season title for the second season in a row before advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament as a No. 5 seed.

Texas tracks to be even better next year, with Madison Booker, who already won the Cheryl Miller Award as the best small forward in the nation as a freshman, buoyed by a year of experience and Rori Harmon, lost for the season to an ACL injury just as the calendar turned to 2024, returning to the court. The Longhorns also will be boosted by rising senior wing Laila Phelia, who has traded the blue and maize of Michigan for burnt orange. Head coach Vic Schaefer also knows the conference well, having spent 12 years in charge at Mississippi State. Oklahoma should return the core contributors to their solid squad, with freshman forward Sahara Williams poised to emerge as a bigger presence for the Sooners.

Although we do not yet know how the conference schedule will shake out, it will be exciting to see what rivalries quickly emerge between the Longhorns, Sooners and the conference’s longer tenured teams.

Tennessee, Kentucky look to return to the top

It would not have been surprising if Tennessee had stuck with Kellie Harper and Kentucky had given Kyra Elzy another season. Harper was hired in 2019 and Elzy took over in 2020, meaning both head coaches ascended to pressure-packed jobs just as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated changes to the college sports landscape. In short, it’s easy to argue that neither got a full, fair shake. Nevertheless, both Tennessee…