If you didn’t watch the NCAA Women’s March Madness Tournament last week you missed out on some of the most exciting basketball ever played.
On Monday, April 1st, 2024, the Iowa Hawkeyes beat the LSU Tigers 94-87 in a much-heralded Elite Eight game. It was a rematch of last year’s Championship match, featuring two of the sport’s most electric superstars, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. The game averaged 12.3 million viewers with a peak of 16.1 million people tuning in. This made it the most watched NCAA basketball game on ESPN ever. It beat viewership numbers for most non-playoff football games, playoff MLB games, and playoff hockey games. Even in today’s world, where TV viewership numbers aren’t what they used to be, people tuned into this match-up.
The game was electric, living up to the hype. Last year’s Championship was a mostly one-sided affair, with LSU winning 102-85. Iowa couldn’t handle Reese in the post and many of their starters quickly ran into foul trouble. Clark still had a great game but could not elevate her team to her level. The sequel was a different story. Billed as a revenge match for Clark, she came out shooting, immediately dropping a three on Hailey van Lith after she went under a screen.[1]
Both teams went on runs in the first half, with neither the Hawkeyes nor LSU able to sustain a lead. In the middle of the second quarter, it looked like the Tigers might run away with it. Angle Reese seemed unstoppable and a few Iowa players ran into foul trouble. But then Reese reaggravated an old ankle injury and started missing shots. The teams went into half-time with the score tied 45-45.
Coming out of the half though, Iowa took the lead and never relinquished it. LSU, coached by Kim Mulkey, the recent subject of a pretty damning Washington Post article, had no answer for Clark who continued to take advantage of whoever guarded her, whether through finding the right pass, driving by her defender, or just shooting over them. It wasn’t just Clark either, Kate Martin had 21 points and Sydney Affolter had 16. It was a team effort. LSU never gave up, Flau’jae Johnson, Aneesah Morrow, Mikaylah Williams, and Reese all had good games, it just wasn’t enough to stop Clark.
The tournament isn’t just one game. Immediately after the barn-burner that was Iowa vs LSU, UConn played USC in another Elite Eight classic. UConn, headed up by Paige Bueckers, another world-destroying talent, beat out USC’s freshman phenom and first-team All-American JuJu Watkins 80-73. Bueckers, dropped 28 while picking up 10 boards and dishing out six assists, carried an injury-plagued UConn to victory.
This led up to a rivalry match between Iowa and UConn on Friday, April 5th. Clark and Bueckers started college the same year, beginning as highly touted recruits. According to Clark, UConn never once reached out to try and recruit her, something that she seems to have taken as a bit of an insult. There is some former history between the two teams. They met in the Sweet Sixteen in Clark and Bueckers’ freshman year and UConn stomped Iowa 92-72.
Not to keep you in suspense, but Iowa won this game 71-69 in a barnburner of a match, with each side holding double-digit leads at points during the game. Iowa almost gave away a ten-point lead with a few minutes to go, before a costly offensive foul cost UConn a shot at winning the game with 3 seconds left. The call was controversial, but Iowa held on for the win.
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I haven’t even mentioned the other two teams in the Final Four. South Carolina has the best defense in the world and has not lost a game all year, in part due to center Kamilla Cardoso, who, barring an alien invasion, will be one of the top draft picks in the WNBA draft, and the deepest bench of any team in the tournament. They beat NC State, an underdog in their first Final Four in team history. Their lights-out shooting and uber-talented guard Saniya Rivers were not enough to stop South Carolina.
This set up a final between Iowa and South Carolina on Sunday, April 7th. The most efficient offense in college basketball (Iowa) vs the most efficient defense (South Carolina). When the game began Iowa came out on a 10-0 run and looked position to perhaps take the wind out of South Carolina’s sails early. However, by the half South Carolina took a lead that it did not relinquish for the rest of the game beating Iowa 87-75. Iowa just could not handle South Carolina’s ability to get offensive rebounds and second-chance baskets, and SC’s bench players shot amazing from the field, just getting too many people in Iowa’s face. A great championship game. 17 million people watched the game at its peak.
In short, this is an electrifying time for not just the women’s college game, but basketball in general. Clark, Reese, and Cardoso will all be drafted and play in the WNBA next year, adding their star power to a league already full of it. The Indiana Fever, largely on the presumption that they’ll take Clark with the first pick of the draft,;l has seen ticket sales increase by orders of magnitude. It’s a great time to get into the sport if you haven’t already.
Unfortunately, the NCAA isn’t always living up to the moment. It’s always treated the women’s game as a secondary thought, not even allowing them to use the “March Madness” moniker until recently. The tournament has made news in recent years for a lack of support for women’s teams, famously providing exercise equipment to tournament teams only after athletes went onto social media to show the disparity in what the men’s teams got versus the women’s.
That has spilled onto the court as well. Even setting aside the fact that some of the most watched basketball games of the last decade[2] were played in Albany of all places, the NCAA couldn’t even get their courts right. On one of the courts used for Sweet Sixteen games the three-point line was drawn incorrectly, placed a few inches shorter than regulations call for. It wasn’t until a fan pointed out the quite obvious error that it was fixed, but only after multiple games had been played on the court. Technically the mishap was caused by an outside company the NCAA had hired to do the courts, but still, that’s incomprehensible and something they’d never let happen in the men’s game.
The NCAA has never been a great, or even good, organization, but it’s embarrassing itself here. It’s trite, but not incorrect, to point out that sexism is still fully ingrained into all women’s sports. Even when the sport is at a peak, featuring multiple superstars at the same time, its executive body continues to not fully invest in the players and product. It’s up to the fans to demand more and better treatment of the players. Without that pressure, nothing will ever change.
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[1] This is getting pretty technical, but you absolutely do not want to go under a screen when guarding Clark, one of the best, if not the best, shooter to ever play the game. It’d be like only throwing Babe Ruth fastballs right down the middle, or not double-teaming Michael Jordan in the paint.
[2] That’s not an exaggeration.