NIAGARA FALLS, NY – Happy Solar Eclipse Week! So we are gonna run it back like we did last week. And the money will block out the sun for a couple of hours today. I have to talk about the NCAA Basketball tournament – because it has been wild.: Men’s March Madness, Women’s March Madness, Caitlin Clark.
Men’s March Madness
At the start of the tournament some said it was the UConn invitational, as they were the favorite and the best team during the regular season as well as defending champs. However, the NCAA tournament is a cruel mistress and it has torn many storybook seasons asunder. The Cinderella run by NC State fell by the wayside to a Purdue team that had been dominant all season, led by big man Zach Edey. Meanwhile UConn also took care of business against upstarts Alabama. So we have two teams that have been good all season. The smart money is on UConn because they are a deeper team and that may be the big difference as we saw in the women’s final.
Women’s March Madness
Dawn Staley is something special. She has won the Tourney as a player, won Olympic gold as a player and coach and now has her third title as South Carolina coach. They went 38-0 this season, undefeated regular season is an achievement, but not losing the whole season, is something different. The other part of this is, that the Gamecocks defeated the Iowa Hawkeyes to extract some revenge after being knocked out of the tournament last season. The Gamecocks came back with a new starting five courtesy of new recruits and some players graduating to win it. What was amazing about this tournament is the consistent high ratings the games got. The women’s game not only got better ratings than the men, some games were the most-watched sports events, outside of things like the Superbowl. Iowa vs LSU had the best ratings ever, then Iowa vs UConn was the second best ever. The media darling that is Caitlin Clark was responsible for a large part of it and Staley made sure to thank her in her victory speech.
Caitlin Clark is a hot button issue.
I have sympathy for Clark. As a white girl, she is being pushed into a situation she may not be comfortable with. I feel for her because a lot of times players can’t control the press and media narrative. She is a talented white girl from Midwest so there is the “real America” talk and playing the right way. LSU were cast as a bunch of uppity black girls and unpatriotic by a press desperate for a villain. Regarding the narrative is that a decent white player gets over-hyped all the time. I am not saying she is over-hyped but a white girl from Iowa being one of the best in the country is gonna be hyped up a lot. At least Paige Bueckers commented on the racism at play in her ESPY speech 2 years ago. Even Keith Van Horne, years ago, complained about being compared to Larry Bird, instead of Kevin Garnett, who he modeled his game after. What’s funny is Clark is gonna take a pay cut going from college to the pros. The NIL money she made in college was off the charts and its gonna be hard replicating that in the pros.
Thanks for reading and come tomorrow to hear from the Kim Mulkey Fan Club Interim President, Ben Whitney.
