Talia's Timeout: The SEC is deepest conference heading into women's college basketball season

With the women’s college basketball season tipping off, On3’s Talia Goodman is answering your biggest questions. In this edition of Talia’s Timeout, she breaks down the Big Ten race, which conference is the deepest and discusses the impact NIL plays on the recruiting trail. If you have a question for Goodman, be sure to follow her on X and send your questions for the next mailbag.

+What’s the absolute maximum amount of Big Ten teams you can see making the NCAA Tournament if everything goes right?

The Big Ten is deeper than it looks at first glance. I think eight teams will comfortably earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament, but there are 10 that could reasonably make an appearance. 

The eight I feel most confident about are USC, UCLA, Ohio State, Maryland, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois. But Michigan State and Minnesota are right there. With one less power conference, I think the Big Ten is stronger than ever, and the opportunity for a wild horse to enter the conversation isn’t out of reach either. 

+Which conference is the deepest?

I’ve got to go with the SEC here. There are six SEC teams in On3’s preseason Top 25 rankings and two that barely missed the cutoff because of some unknowns. Tennessee and Kentucky both have new head coaches at the helm, and I think they could both be serious threats to those at the top of the conference. 

Even teams like Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and Auburn have really exciting rosters with the potential to earn NCAA Tournament bids. With conference realignment, though, every power conference is really deep this season. 

+Who’s a mid-major to keep an eye on this season?

There’s quite a few mid-majors that should make some national noise this season. Fairfield comes to mind first, as they lost just one regular-season game last season and return their top five scorers from an NCAA Tournament team. 

Some other mid-majors to look out for are Gonzaga, Belmont, South Dakota State, Florida Gulf Coast and USF. These are all historically successful mid-major programs that schedule hard and will make a splash. 

+What’s a fatal flaw for each of the top five teams this season?

USC: Chemistry is the obvious answer here. There are so many new pieces on this team from transfers Kiki Iriafen and Talia von Oelhoffen to a stacked class of six top-100 freshmen. They have a challenging non conference schedule, so they’ll need to mesh well and they’ll need to do it early. 

South Carolina: Interior scoring is my biggest question mark for the Gamecocks heading into the season. Though they have some talented options, replacing 6-foot-7 Kamilla Cardoso is no easy task. Returners 6-foot-3 Sania Feagin and 6-foot-2 Chloe Kitts should be relied on heavily in the post, but head coach Dawn Staley also added 6-foot-4 post player Maryam Dauda from Arkansas. 

UConn: Health is the easy answer. No one has struggled more to stay healthy than the Huskies. They still have four players recovering from injury, including Azzi Fudd, who’s a true difference-maker for this team. If they can stay healthy, the sky’s the limit for UConn. 

Texas: Transitioning to a new conference can be hard, but as I said earlier, it’s also the deepest conference in the country. The SEC is a beast. The Longhorns have struggled with some injuries this offseason and they’ll test themselves early in the season. A non-conference schedule, including road games at Notre Dame and Richmond and a matchup against South Dakota State, will prepare them for SEC play – but they’ll have to play at Oklahoma, South Carolina, Ole Miss and Kentucky. We’ll see how easily they can adjust to the new league. 

UCLA: Honestly, it’s tough to find a “fatal” flaw with the Bruins. They lost Charisma Osborne to the WNBA, but the Bruins return all four remaining starters and add three impact transfers, along with one of the best freshman classes in the country. It’s not “fatal” per se, but joining the Big Ten presents the struggle of traveling cross-country fairly often. They’ll have to play at two of the best home environments in the Big Ten in Indiana and Iowa, which could pose a challenge during conference play. But it’s hard to find much to criticize with the built-in chemistry this team has and the additions they picked up. 

+How much of a factor is NIL in recruiting?

We are absolutely seeing NIL be a major factor in recruiting, especially for this 2025 class. More and more players are hiring agents and focusing their energy on earning their worth, which is understandable in the current college landscape. This summer, we saw the Pauldo Twins commit to Tennessee, and they told On3 that NIL was a major reason why they did so. 

“Obviously us playing together was a special part,” Mya Pauldo told On3. “But they also had a bigger platform than all the other colleges we were looking at. We thought it would be a better fit for our brand, because it will build our brand – and the numbers just fit.”

Top recruit in the class, Aliyah Chavez, is also highly considering NIL while choosing a landing spot, several sources told On3. The numbers range from top to bottom of the class, but we’re seeing certain players offered six-figure deals in their recruitment process.