LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — This women’s basketball foursome is no stranger to playing under bright lights on big stages. But it's Paris this time.
The City of Light will be a completely different venue and experience when No. 3 USC, crosstown rival and No. 5 UCLA, No. 17 Louisville and No. 20 Ole Miss take the court Monday in the Aflac Oui-Play doubleheader to open the women's college basketball season.
Several months after a thrilling Olympic gold medal game between Team USA and host France enhanced the game’s rapidly growing appeal, this ranked quartet are eager to maintain that momentum.
“It’s a really good opportunity for us,” Ole Miss guard Kennedy Todd-Williams said. “Big lights, you know, really big game. We came here to compete and showcase who we are. First game of the season, so we’re just really looking forward to this opportunity for everyone to compete on a high level.”
Ole Miss and USC, which features Associated Press preseason All-America selections JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen, will meet in the opener in Adidas Arena. UCLA takes on Louisville in the nightcap. The doubleheader follows last year’s debut between South Carolina and Notre Dame, which the Gamecocks won 100-71 to start an unbeaten run to their third national title.
They claimed the championship against Iowa and superstar Caitlin Clark, a showdown that generated a bigger TV audience than the men's championship amid record attendance for the NCAA Tournament. Watkins’ breakout freshman season helped the Women of Troy earn a No. 1 seeding before falling to UConn in the Elite Eight.
“There’s just a sense of urgency to go further than where we went last year," Watkins said during the team's media day. “It’s just exciting to open and be the first game on TV. The main thing is to win, that’s always the main thing. I’m excited to get that first dub (win) with the team.”
The WNBA also reaped dividends from the presence of Clark and Angel Reese, culminating in an audience of 2.2 million for the decisive fifth game of the WNBA Finals between the champion New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx and at least 1 million for the other four.
Louisville coach Jeff Walz appreciates the increased attention, especially compared to what it was not long ago. The 18-year Cardinals veteran has also seen hearty interest overseas while coaching various U.S. women’s national squads during the summer and relishes being on that stage with a game that counts.
“Our women’s game has grown exponentially here this past year and a half or so, and a lot of it is obviously because of talented players,” he said last month before jetting off to France soon after. “It’s great now because people are able to see how talented and gifted these players are. … I think it’s going to continue to grow because of that internationally. It’s fantastic. I love the opportunities I’ve had to coach internationally, (with) just a little bit different style of basketball.”
Though other marquee matchups await all four after returning stateside, they want a good performance as a springboard to bigger things in a landscape reshuffled by realignment.
USC and UCLA, for example, have moved from the Pac-12 Conference to the Big Ten. Louisville’s Atlantic Coast Conference grind now includes Pac-12 transfers Stanford and Cal, and SMU from the American Athletic. Ole Miss has to deal with Texas and Oklahoma moving into the SEC from the Big 12 in addition to getting past the Gamecocks.
UCLA coach Cory Close looks forward to Louisville pushing her Bruins on both ends of the floor.
“It sets the stage and a standard for us," said Close, who has worked with Walz in many national programs. “We have a very talented team but we are not playing with that level of excellence yet, and they are going to hold us accountable.”
The games will be played at the fairly new 8,000-seat home for the Euro League's Paris Basketball. That will wrap an experience featuring Parisian sightseeing staples such as the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Arc de Triomphe.
“This is something you dream your whole life about,” Louisville graduate guard Merissah Russell said. “It’s everybody’s dream to play in those top-notch games. … It’s going to be fun to not only play in Paris, but have this experience to see what’s going on in the rest of the world.”
This corrects story in 9th paragraph to show Louisville coach Jeff Walz is 18-year veteran at the school.
AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball
FILE - Southern California guard JuJu Watkins reacts after a shot during a second-round college basketball game against Kansas in the women's NCAA Tournament in Los Angeles, Monday, March 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)
The first, ominous sounds came from deep within the massive stack of logs in the darkest hours of the Texas night. Witnesses described hearing the stack of thousands of logs moan and creak before the crack of the center pole as it snapped, then collapsed.
More than a million pounds (450,000 kilograms) of timber tumbled. In an instant, 12 people were killed, dozens more were injured and a university campus rooted in traditions carried across generations of students was permanently scarred.
Texas A&M University is set to mark 25 years since the log stack collapsed in the early hours of Nov. 18, 1999. It was being built in preparation for the annual bonfire ahead of the Texas A&M-Texas rivalry football game in College Station.
The school will hold a Bonfire Remembrance ceremony at the site of the tragedy on Monday at 2:42 a.m., about the time the stack collapsed.
“Year after year, Texas A&M students have worked to ensure that we never forget those members of the Aggie Family who were taken from us 25 years ago," school President Mark Welsh III said.
The “Fightin' Texas Aggie Bonfire” ranked among the most revered traditions in college football and symbolized the school's “burning desire” to beat the University of Texas Longhorns in football. The first bonfire in 1907 was a scrap heap that was set ablaze. By 1909, it was a campus event and the bonfire stack kept growing as railroad lines were used to ship in in carloads of scrap lumber, railroad ties and other flammable materials, according to the school.
It reached a record height of 105 feet (32 meters) in 1969 before administrators, concerned about a fire hazard, imposed a 55-foot (17-meter) limit. Over the years, the stack evolved from a teepee-style mound into the vertical timber formation, a shape similar to a tiered wedding cake, that collapsed in 1999.
The annual bonfire attracted crowds of up to 70,000 and burned every year through 1998. The only exception was in 1963, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The stack of more than 5,000, 18-foot (5.5-meter) logs toppled a week before it was scheduled to burn. The 12 who were killed included five freshmen, four sophomores, a junior, a senior and a recent graduate. Several were members of the Corps of Cadets, Texas A&M's student-led, military-style organization that played a large role in its construction.
Rescuers, including members of the Texas A&M football team, raced to remove the logs that had trapped and crushed some of the victims. At rival Texas, Longhorns players organized a blood drive to assist the survivors.
An investigation ordered by the school determined flawed construction led by unqualified student workers led to the collapse.
In 2003, the school dedicated a memorial on the spot where the stack fell. It includes a “Spirit Ring” with 12 portals representing those who were killed. Each portal contains an engraved portrait and signature of a victim and points toward their hometown. By stepping into the open archway, the visitor symbolically fills the void left by the deceased.
The annual Aggie bonfire was discontinued as an official school event after the deadly collapse.
The school considered reviving the tradition this year to coincide with the renewal of the Texas-Texas A&M football rivalry on Nov. 30. The rivalry split in 2012 when Texas A&M left the Big 12 Conference for the Southeastern Conference, but has resumed this year as Texas joined the SEC.
A special committee recommended resuming the bonfire, but only if the log stack was designed and built by professional engineers and contractors. Some members of the public said it should not come back if it was not organized and built by students, according to tradition.
Welsh ultimately decided the bonfire would not return to campus.
"Bonfire, both a wonderful and tragic part of Aggie history, should remain in our treasured past,” the president said in June when he announced his decision.
Students have continued to organize and build unofficial off-campus bonfires over the years and plan to burn this year's edition on Nov. 29, the night before the Texas A&M-Texas football game.
FILE - Jerry Ebanks, left, whose son Michael Ebanks was killed in the 1999 bonfire collapse, speaks at the Bonfire Memorial dedication at Texas A&M University in College Station, Nov. 18, 2004. In back from left to right is University President Dr. Robert M. Gates; Texas Gov. Rick Perry; and Student Body President Jackson Hildebrand. (AP Photo/Donna McWilliam, File)
FILE - Texas A&M Emergency Care Team volunteer Linda Salzar, a recent masters graduate, kneels at the center pole marker at the Texas A&M Bonfire Memorial, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009, in College Station, Texas. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News via AP, File)
FILE - Emergency workers rush a student who was trapped for hours under a stack of logs which collapsed while being prepared for a pre-football game bonfire, Nov. 18, 1999, at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. (Dave McDermand/College Station Eagle via AP, File)
FILE - Texas A&M students and rescue workers gathered at the base of the collapsed bonfire stack as the search continues for victims in College Station, Texas, Nov. 18, 1999. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File)
