Standout freshmen UConn's Sarah Strong, South Carolina's Joyce Edwards meet for national title

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Sarah Strong and Joyce Edwards have played against each other since about the eighth grade.

They were two of the top girls basketball prospects in the country when they were AAU opponents. They shared co-MVP honors at the 2024 McDonald’s All-American Girls Game and crossed paths again on USA Basketball's girls Under-19 team.

Strong went on to play for Geno Auriemma's UConn Huskies. Edwards went with Dawn Staley's South Carolina Gamecocks. The two rising stars will meet again on Sunday, when No. 2 seed UConn faces top-seeded South Carolina in the national championship game in Tampa, Florida.

Edwards played at Camden High School in South Carolina and was the 2024 Gatorade National Player of the Year.

Strong, who played at Grace Christian School in North Carolina, was the 2024 Naismith High School Player of the Year.

Strong remembers one key thing about playing Edwards back then in AAU.

“They had a great team. They beat us,” she said. “It is what it is.”

Both are having standout freshman seasons for two storied programs.

Strong, the top-ranked player in her recruiting class, is averaging 16.2 points per game for the Huskies — second on the team behind Paige Bueckers' 20 — and leads the team with 8.7 rebounds.

The 6-foot-2 forward entered her first NCAA tournament sitting in the top 10 all time among UConn freshmen in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots. Only Maya Moore had done that before.

She's also the first Division I freshman with at least 500 points, 250 rebounds, 100 assists, 50 steals and 50 blocked shots since Candace Parker.

“Sarah — how do I say this? In the next three years, she might be the best player to come out of UConn,” said South Carolina coach Dawn Staley. "And those are strong words. I know Stewy (Breanna Stewart) won four (national titles). But what she’s able to do — stay calm, the IQ — is off the charts. The skill set, off the charts.

“Big play after big play after big play. Such a great complement to an already skilled UConn team. I think she’s the piece that puts it all together. She makes it all work.”

Strong and Staley also go way back. Strong's mother, Allison Feaster, was teammates with Staley on the WNBA's Charlotte Sting and they remained good friends after their playing days were over. Feaster's kept Staley updated on Strong's basketball growth.

The Gamecocks recruited Strong to come to South Carolina, but the young prospect had been in talks with Auriemma’s and UConn for a while.

“We probably came in a little bit late on Sarah. I think UConn was recruiting her much earlier in the process than we were," Staley said.

“But being a teammate (with Feaster) I thought would actually help us out a little bit more than what it helped us out,” Staley quipped. “Like, we made history together.”

Staley did end up with a key contributor of her own in Edwards, who led a deep and experienced Gamecocks team with 12.7 points per game this season.

Edwards had been quiet during the NCAA Tournament despite her stellar freshman campaign, which included a career-high 28 points and five rebounds against Florida in February. She was held to fewer than six points in each game of the tournament before the national semifinal on Friday, when she had 13 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and a steal.

It was Edwards' fourth career double-double and most rebounds she's had in a game this season. South Carolina improved to 4-0 when she has a double-double.

“I’m happy for Joyce because I know as a young person, you’re struggling in the very thing that you love to do," Staley said. "She really works at it. She watches film. She’s obsessively working out. So you want people like that to enjoy the fruits of their labor.”

Edwards said her teammates rallied around her during her tournament slump. That helped her not get too low, and trust that her breakout game was coming.

“I feel I was more definitive,” Edwards said. “More open minded. Giving what the game gave me, not overthinking, not second-guessing, just going.”

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South Carolina forward Joyce Edwards (8) puts up a shot against Texas forward Kyla Oldacre (00) during the first half of a national semifinal Final Four game during the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

UConn forward Sarah Strong (21) drives to the basket against UCLA forward Angela Dugalic (32) during the first half of a national semifinal Final Four game during the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

South Carolina forward Joyce Edwards (8) puts up shot against Texas forward Kyla Oldacre (00) during the second half of a national semifinal Final Four game during the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — President Donald Trump's nominee to oversee an agency that manages a quarter-billion acres of public land has withdrawn her nomination following revelations that she criticized the Republican president in 2021 for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The withdrawal of Kathleen Sgamma to lead the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management was announced Thursday morning at the start of her confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

David Bernhardt, who served as interior secretary in Trump’s first term, suggested on X that Sgamma’s withdrawal was “self-inflicted” and he included a link to a website that posted her 2021 comments. Bernhardt indicated that people whose views don’t align with Trump’s should not seek political appointments in his administration.

“I am disgusted by the violence witnessed yesterday and President Trump’s role in spreading misinformation that incited it,” Sgamma said in the comments earlier reported by Documented, which describes itself as a watchdog journalism project.

Sgamma confirmed her withdrawal on LinkedIn and said it was an honor to have been nominated.

“I remain committed to President Trump and his unleashing American energy agenda and ensuring multiple-use access for all,” said Sgamma. Since 2006 she's been with the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, an oil industry trade group, and has been a vocal critic of the energy policies of Democratic administrations.

White House spokesperson Liz Huston said the administration looked forward to naming another nominee but did not offer a timeline.

The longtime oil and gas industry representative appeared well-poised to carry out Trump's plans to roll back restrictions on energy development, including in Western states where the land bureau has vast holdings. The agency also oversees mining, grazing and recreation.

Sgamma's withdrawal underscored the Trump administration's creation of a “loyalty test” to weed out subordinates who are out of step with him, said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the left-leaning Center for Western Priorities.

“That’s the world we're in — if that’s what happened — where being sane and acknowledging reality with the White House is enough to sink a nomination,” he said.

Trump has been testing how far Republicans are willing to go in supporting his supercharged “Make America Great Again” agenda. Few Republicans have criticized Trump after his sweeping pardons of supporters, including violent rioters, charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Most congressional Republicans have played down the potential negative impact of Trump’s actions, including widespread tariffs on U.S. allies, and have stressed the importance of uniting behind him.

The Bureau of Land Management plays a central role in a long-running debate over the best use of government-owned lands, and its policies have swung sharply as control of the White House has shifted between Republicans and Democrats. Under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, it curbed oil drilling and coal mining on federal lands while expanding renewable power. The agency under Biden also moved to put conservation on more equal footing with oil drilling and other extractive industries in a bid to address climate change.

Trump is reversing the land bureau's course yet again.

On Thursday, officials announced that they will not comprehensively analyze environmental impacts from oil and gas leases on a combined 5,500 square miles (14,100 square kilometers) of bureau land in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. The leases were sold to companies between 2015 and 2020 but have been tied up by legal challenges.

Also this week, Trump signed an executive order aimed at boosting coal production. That will end the Biden administration's ban on new federal coal sales on bureau lands in Wyoming and Montana, the nation's largest coal fields.

The land bureau had about 10,000 employees at the start of Trump’s second term, but at least 800 employees have been laid off or resigned amid efforts by the Trump administration to downsize the federal workforce.

It went four years without a confirmed director during Trump's first term. Trump moved the agency’s headquarters to Colorado before it was returned to Washington, D.C., under Biden.

Senate energy committee Chairman Mike Lee said he would work with the administration to find a new nominee for the bureau.

"Its work directly impacts millions of Americans — especially in the West — and its leadership matters," the Utah Republican said.

Utah officials last year launched a legal effort to wrest control of Bureau of Land Management property from the federal government and put it under state control. They were turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Daly reported from Washington, D.C.

FILE - Kathleen Sgamma, President, Western Energy Alliance, speaks during a House Committee on Natural Resources hearing on America's Energy and Mineral potential, Feb. 8, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)