Cheryl Miller and other women's hoops greats discuss state of the game at AP Top 25 Poll Experience
When basketball great Cheryl Miller thinks of the state of the women's game today, she is filled with pride. Most conversations centered on how name, image and likeness along with the transfer portal are shaping the college game.
PHOENIX (AP) — When basketball great Cheryl Miller thinks of the state of the women's game today, she is filled with pride. Pride with how interest and investment in women's hoops has skyrocketed since her days dominating at Southern California. Pride with how women's athletes are celebrated.
Pride with the development in player skill over the years. “A lot of these players are so dedicated, not just the X's and O's or the physical, their skillset," said Miller, who was honored this week as one of the greatest players of The Associated Press women’s basketball poll era, "but taking care of their bodies, the nutrition and sleeping better and what’s provided for them now at certain universities and programs. It’s just the evolution of the game itself.
” Miller and other women's basketball trailblazers, including Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman and former UCLA standout Ann Meyers Drysdale, spoke about the state of college sports at “The AP Top 25 Fan Poll Experience ,” which was held at Arizona State’s First Amendment Forum in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix. Most conversations centered on how name, image and likeness along with the transfer portal are shaping the college game. The changes in college sports have permeated politics, and ahead of the start of the Final Four for both men and women, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at restoring “order, fairness and stability” to college athletics .
The order directs federal agencies to bolster the effectiveness of key rules on transferring, eligibility and pay-for-play by evaluating whether violations of such rules render a university unfit for federal grants and contracts. South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, whose team will play Sunday in the national championship game for the fourth time in five years, recently said her conversations with recruits nowadays reflect the new college sports landscape. While Staley's talks with recruits once centered on earning degrees, they're mostly focused now on money, especially with players in the transfer portal.