Women’s basketball has never been more popular, and the numbers back it up.
The NCAA tournament has smashed records this season (the men have as well), and it’s easy to see why.
You have an all-time mega star in Caitlin Clark, a woman who transcends the game. The NCAA scoring queen is relatable, kind of like Steph Curry. What I mean by that is Clark, like Curry, looks a lot like a lot of young athletes. No offense to LeBron James, but most kids can’t relate to the kind of God given physical traits and skills that he possesses.
Young girls look at Caitlin Clark and think to themselves that could be me. Curry had the same quality when he burst onto the scene. And it’s funny to compare the two, because their games are so similar. It’s not just that they’re the best shooters on the planet, it’s the range they can hit from. Couple that with their passing ability, handle and overall feel for the game, I can’t help but think about Curry when I watch Clark.
Okay, so transcendent star — check.
Villains. That’s covered too.
Any sport is at its peak when you have a great team that people love to hate. That’s LSU, the team that beat Iowa for the title last year and who Iowa knocked off on Monday to get back to the Final Four.
They have a great albeit polarizing coach in Kim Mulkey, a coach that won three national titles at Baylor before leaving for LSU and winning the championship last season. She’s brash and rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but she’s also brilliant.
Mulkey’s best player is Angel Reese, a supremely talented and confident star in her own right. Like her coach, Reese has ruffled a few feathers, most notably when she waved her hand in Clark’s face with the “you can’t see me gesture” at the end of last season’s national championship game.
The villain role is one they play well.
Then you have the established champion, the gold standard program in UConn. Geno Auriemma has won an astounding 11 national titles, and he has dominated the sport much like UCLA’s John Wooden did on the men’s side years ago.
UConn has a superstar of its own in Paige Bueckers, who will square off with Clark and Iowa in the national semifinal on Friday — South Carolina will face N.C. State in the other.
It’s funny, between Clark and LSU and how much they have been in the headlines, the Huskies were almost an afterthought, which is almost comical when you think about how much they have dominated the support.
But perhaps that’s another big draw. The sport is more competitive now than it’s ever been. And that’s a good thing.
You also have in the Final Four the team that many feels have replaced UConn as tops in the game, South Carolina and head coach Dawn Staley, who has won at a ridiculously high level, including two national titles, and has had a number of stars of her own.
With the women’s Final Four being not that far away in Cleveland, I took a glance at the ticket prices just for the heck of it. I expected them to be pretty pricey, but they are absolutely through the roof.
Between an upstart N.C. State team and the combination of the old champion (UConn), perhaps the top current program (South Carolina) and the sport’s megastar (Clark), it’s no wonder this tournament has smashed records, and will again in its final three games of what has been a remarkable season.
