Key events
Game time!
Well, not yet. But soon.
It’s always amusing when the ticker on ESPN says a game is starting at 7 ET when it’s clearly not underway at 7:03.
Scouting LSU
The Tigers’ nonconference schedule makes Iowa’s look like Murderer’s Row by comparison. Southeast Louisiana? Texas Southern? Niagara? And they beat Queens, which went 1-15 in the Atlantic Sun conference this year.
But they finished second in the SEC, which isn’t quite as strong as it was in past years but is still a tough challenge.
Angel Reese, who dominated the highlights with her gestures toward Clark last year, leads a relatively balanced offense with 18.7 points per game and dominates the boards with 13.2 per game. On any other team, Aneesah Morrow would have the top rebounding average at 9.9. Morrow is the second-leading scorer (16.5) on a team that has six players averaging double digits. Hailey Van Lith adds 3.7 assists per game to her 11.7 points.
Morrow (DePaul) and Van Lith (Louisville) transferred to LSU last summer.
Scouting Iowa
Caitlin Clark gets plenty of attention for her scoring output – 31.7 points per game. But she also has an equally impressive 8.9 assists per game. She even leads Iowa in rebounding at 7.3 per game. The downside – she averages 4.8 turnovers as well.
Sophomore forward Hannah Stuelke averages 14.0 points and 6.8 rebounds per game, topping out at 47 points in a win over Penn State. Senior guard Kate Martin is the other double-digit scorer at 12.8 points per game, and she matches Stuelke in rebounding.
The Hawkeyes haven’t played a particularly tough schedule. They have four losses – to Kansas State, Ohio State, Nebraska and Indiana, the latter by 17 points. Their best win avenged their loss to Ohio State.
The second game tonight will be another game in which the No. 3 seed is very much on par with the No. 1 seed they’re facing. Connecticut has won 11 national championships but none since 2016. They’ve been under the radar a little bit this year, hence the No. 3 seed, but their championship history could give them an edge over No. 1 Southern California, a powerhouse of the 1980s that has been away from the big stage for a few decades.
Preamble
Is this game the biggest in women’s basketball history?
It’s a rematch of last year’s national championship, a 102-85 barnburner punctuated by some taunting that prompted a national debate.
It features a transcendent player, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, whose media profile has been enhanced by changes in NCAA rules allowing her appear in television ads.
It features a coach, LSU’s Kim Mulkey, whose sideline flamboyance attracts attention that is exponentially increased by various controversies, including her refusal to give even the most tepid support to Brittney Griner, who led Mulkey’s Baylor team to a 40-0 record in 2012, while the player was imprisoned in Russia.
Mulkey’s fraught relationships with her family and some (definitely not all) of her former players prompted a story in The Washington Post, against which Mulkey lobbed a pre-emptive strike.
But that story was overshadowed by a column in the Los Angeles Times positing LSU’s game vs. UCLA as a battle of good vs. evil. The newspaper took the unusual step of editing the column and saying a “previous version of this commentary did not meet Times editorial standards.”
Are you not entertained?
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, the teams may want to take a look at the three-point line if events elsewhere at this tournament are anything to go by:
The NCAA has come under criticism after it was discovered that the three-point lines were different lengths from the hoop on the two sides of the court in Portland for the Elite Eight.
The news emerged as NC State and Texas prepared to meet for a place in the women’s NCAA Tournament Final Four. Both teams’ coaches were notified but agreed to play despite the discrepancy. Basketball fans on X soon called out the NCAA over the disruption.
You can read the full article below: