You Want to Watch Caitlin Clark and That Other Final Four This Weekend - McMahon

You Want to Watch Caitlin Clark and That Other Final Four This Weekend - McMahon

Sure, the men’s NCAA basketball Final Four promises to be a doozy with defending champ UConn, with 7’4” Zach Edey and the Purdue Boilermakers, and with upstarts NC State and Alabama.  Most local hoop fans will likely be rooting for fellow Big East team Dan Hurley’s UConn Huskies to repeat as NCAA champs.  Saturday matchups are Purdue and NC State, followed by UConn and Alabama.  The finals, likely between Purdue and UConn, will take place on Monday night.

 

But if you want to watch a Final Four with even more storylines and drama, tune in to the women’s NCAA basketball championship games this weekend. Friday’s games feature NC State vs. South Carolina, followed by Iowa vs. UConn. The finals will be on Sunday.

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It’s tempting to simply wax on rhapsodically about the basketball phenom Caitlin Clark of Iowa in this article and call it a day. But the women’s games are bursting with story lines all over the court. For starters, NC State and UConn in both women’s and men’s Final Fours? When did that last happen to two colleges? The residents of the Tar Heel State and the Nutmeg State have the bragging rights to call North Carolina and Connecticut the college basketball capitals of the US.

 

South Carolina? Well, they are in their second straight Final Four, are presently undefeated, and are looking to win the NCAA tournament by going wire-to-wire for the season with no losses. No superstars on the Gamecocks, just a starting five that features players that all contribute, much like the UConn men’s basketball team.  But the Gamecocks will have their hands full on Friday night at 7 PM with the NC State Wolfpack. NC State has quietly emerged this season in the shadow of LSU, South Carolina, and UConn as a legitimate power, easily winning their games in the preliminary rounds of the NCAA tournament.  Look for NC State to test the Gamecocks unbeaten streak.

 

And the UConn women’s team. Yup, that’s the team that has been to the women’s Final Four 28 times, winning 16 of them.  Half of the WBNA players seemed to have played at UConn. The Huskies, though, have not won the Final Four since 2016. And Husky coach, Gene Auriemma has his work cut out for him this year.  While they have a 33-5 record, Auriemma’s team has had to cope with an unbelievable number of injuries.

 

Paige Bueckers, their star player, missed all of last year, and many games this year.  Going into this weekend’s Final Four, UConn will only dress 8 players due to a bunch of season-ending injuries to its roster.  Two of the three bench players are relatively inexperienced freshmen. If the Huskies get into foul trouble, Hall of Fame coach Auriemma does not have many answers.  It will be interesting to see how closely the refs call fouls in the UConn games. And it will be interesting to see if Auriemma has UConn playing a relatively passive defense to keep his players out of foul trouble.

 

If you have been living on Guam for the last year, you may not be up to speed on Caitlin Clark of the Iowa Hawkeyes. She just became the highest-scoring basketball player in the history of NCAA women’s basketball and averaged 32 pts/game this year. She leads Iowa, a team that had no basketball provenance before she enrolled there four years ago, into this year’s Final Four. Her NIL $ this year currently total $3.1 million. You will probably be seeing Caitlin in State Farm commercials this summer. She routinely hits three-pointers from 4-feet behind the arc.  She has turned the state of Iowa into the most basketball crazy state in the country.

 

Clark could have gone to any college powerhouse in 2020 when she graduated from Dowling Catholic High in West Des Moines, IA. But she wanted to continue to play before family and friends and to inspire other Iowa high school girl players. So, this 5-star recruit turned down all the power teams to stay home and play for the Iowa Hawkeyes. She has not only put Iowa basketball in the spotlight, Clark has increased the national following this year for women’s college basketball. The number of viewers for the game last week in the Elite Eight between LSU and Iowa was just shy of 12 million. Just to put that into perspective, last year’s MLB World Series averaged about 9 million viewers.

 

The Friday matchup between UConn and Iowa should be a treat for hoop fans.

 

And a little more…

- As expected, PC star Devin Carter made it official this week announcing that he will be giving up his senior year to enter the NBA draft. That grousing you hear from behind you in the line at Dunkin Donuts is from Friar fans wondering when PC will be announcing any star players from the transfer portal coming to Providence.

- Just in case you may not have been eagerly following this year’s NIT results once PC lost to Boston College, the NIT finals to be played this Thursday, April 4th will have the Seton Hall Pirates vs. the Indiana State Sycamores (Larry Bird’s alma mater).

- While the recently departed Larry Lucchino may have worked wonders with three MLB franchises—Baltimore, San Diego, and the Red Sox, I will never forgive Lucchino and his Rhody Billionaire’s Club for shafting Rhode Island and moving our beloved PawSox to Worcester.

- Speaking of Lucchino, he has an historic connection to another beloved Rhode Island sports franchise, the PC Friars basketball team. Lucchino was a sophomore reserve 5’11” guard on Bill Bradley’s Princeton Ivy League basketball team that mauled the Friars 109-69 in the NCAA Elite Eight in 1965. Lucchino didn’t see any action in that game against PC. That score is still hard to swallow.  PC featured Jimmy Walker, Dexter Westbrook, and Mike Riordan.  Bradley pumped in 41 points against PC and he later played on the 1970 NY Knicks NBA championship team where one of his teammates was Mike Riordan.