South Carolina is back on top of the women's college basketball world, avenging its 2023 Final Four loss to Iowa by winning the program's third national championship under coach Dawn Staley. Sportsbooks like the Gamecocks' chances to make it a fourth.
The Gamecocks open as the favorites to take home the 2025 national championship, showing +250 odds to win it all on ESPN BET. Although South Carolina will lose 2024 most outstanding player Kamilla Cardoso to the WNBA draft, the team will return impact freshmen MiLaysia Fulwiley and Tessa Johnson and will add Joyce Edwards, the number two overall recruit per ESPN's HoopGurlz rankings, in the fall.
Immediately following South Carolina on the odds board is UConn (+400), which will be bringing back superstar Paige Bueckers and adding the top-ranked recruit Sarah Strong, but will lose Aaliyah Edwards to the WNBA. LSU (+500) and NC State (+800) are the last two teams with triple-digit odds.
Star power is clearly a high priority in the minds of bookmakers, as it very well should be. Caitlin Clark, who will finish her Iowa career as one of women's college basketball's all-time greats, will also depart for the WNBA and her Hawkeyes open with just 30-1 odds to win it all. Same goes for Stanford, which similarly opened up at 30-1 after losing Cameron Brink to the WNBA. Iowa's top-ranked recruit of the 2024 class comes in at No. 40, while Stanford's is No. 42.
"If you look at a lot of these women's teams, there's one spark that they all have," DraftKings director of sportsbook and race operations Johnny Avello told ESPN. "Yes, they have surrounding players that are also good, that make it happen, but one key player can turn the whole program around."
Case in point: JuJu Watkins was the No. 1 recruit of the 2023 class and promptly led USC to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1994. The Trojans are 10-1 to win it all in 2025, just ahead of Texas at 12-1. USC is bringing in the sixth-ranked 2024 recruit, while the Longhorns are bringing in the seventh and eighth.