If March Insanity follows the script, Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes will endure a heartbreaking loss earlier than the Closing 4 — similar to Zion Williamson and Duke in 2019. However not like that 12 months on the lads’s facet that gave us a lackluster nationwide semifinal that featured the likes of Virginia, Texas Tech, Michigan State and Auburn, the ladies’s sport is loaded with expertise, storylines, corridor of fame coaches and sufficient star energy to beat Center America’s new favourite workforce getting upset.
If Clark can lead Iowa to a nationwide championship in her ultimate season in faculty basketball, Disney may have a film made about her life earlier than 2024 involves an finish. It will be one of many biggest runs we’ve seen in sports activities, given the variety of awards she’s received, the data she’s set, the viewers she’s introduced in, and doubtlessly vanquishing final season’s loss within the nationwide championship sport.
However that’s if it occurs. As a result of in March, anytime we’ve gamers or groups arrange for a grand finale, they not often occur. Simply ask Coach Okay and 2022 Duke. In addition to, Iowa must get Molly Davis’ knee wholesome.
This, nonetheless, is the place the power of the ladies’s sport has been this season. It isn’t all about Clark, the best scorer in Division I basketball historical past, and the Hawkeyes. For example, this season Stanford’s legendary girls’s head coach, Tara VanDerveer, broke Mike Krzyzewski’s file for many wins, and he or she has a star in Cameron Brink. After that, UConn’s legendary girls’s head coach, Geno Auriemma, additionally handed Krzyzewski. UConn even has Paige Bueckers coming again for one more 12 months, so be careful for them on this match, and subsequent 12 months’s.
After which there’s South Carolina. I don’t assume Clark or anyone else needs to see them on their facet of the bracket. Daybreak Staley’s squad is the one males’s or girls’s workforce to complete the common season undefeated. Thoughts you, she’s doing this with a completely new beginning lineup from the workforce that made it to the Closing 4 final season. Because the 2019-2020 season, South Carolina has misplaced 9 video games — that’s it.
Now, let’s get to LSU — the reigning champs. Whereas Iowa and South Carolina have been the 2 most-talked about groups, LSU is likely to be probably the most fascinating. Angel Reese is the second-most common participant within the sport, and he or she even disappeared for a couple of video games this season — and we nonetheless don’t know why. Any workforce that options Reese and Hailey Van Lith, and is coached by Kim Mulkey, is price your time and a spotlight.
And final, however not least, the girl who is likely to be the most effective participant in faculty hoops has an opportunity to have a popping out celebration as soon as the match begins, as USC freshman JuJu Watkins is the actual deal. With the Trojans being ranked within the High 5, they’ve all of the elements to make a deep run. Since they play on the West Coast and within the dying Pac-12, most of their video games come on late or are on lesser networks. However with Watkins’ potential to attain 30 in her sleep, or 40 and 50 if want be, she’s precisely what a workforce must make it to the Closing 4 — an unguardable bucket-getter. Suppose Maya Moore, however higher at a youthful age.
Convention tournaments have already began, the insanity is formally right here. Please educate your self on all the nice issues and gamers which have made this season such a transcendent one within the girls’s sport. It’s going to be an excellent match, regardless of who cuts down the nets.
