If March Insanity follows the script, Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes will endure a heartbreaking loss earlier than the Remaining 4 — similar to Zion Williamson and Duke in 2019. However in contrast to that yr on the lads’s aspect that gave us a lackluster nationwide semifinal that featured the likes of Virginia, Texas Tech, Michigan State and Auburn, the ladies’s recreation 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 closing 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 recreation.
However that’s if it occurs. As a result of in March, anytime we’ve got gamers or groups arrange for a grand finale, they hardly ever occur. Simply ask Coach Okay and 2022 Duke. Apart from, Iowa must get Molly Davis’ knee healthy.
This, nonetheless, is the place the power of the ladies’s recreation has been this season. It isn’t all about Clark, the greatest scorer in Division I basketball history, and the Hawkeyes. As an illustration, 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 an additional yr, so be careful for them on this match, and subsequent yr’s.
After which there’s South Carolina. I don’t suppose Clark or anyone else desires to see them on their aspect 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 Remaining 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 perhaps essentially the most fascinating. Angel Reese is the second-most well-liked participant within the sport, and she even disappeared for a few 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 value your time and a spotlight.
And final, however not least, the girl who is perhaps one of the best 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 real deal. With the Trojans being ranked within the High 5, they’ve all of the substances 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’ skill to attain 30 in her sleep, or 40 and 50 if want be, she’s precisely what a workforce must make it to the Remaining 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 good issues and gamers which have made this season such a transcendent one within the girls’s recreation. It’s going to be an important match, regardless of who cuts down the nets.
