Iowa-LSU with Iowa G Caitlin Clark and UConn-USC with UConn G Paige Bueckers “lived up to hype that usurped any of the men’s Elite Eight matchups” Getty Images
The Final Four matchups from Friday night through Monday night “has the rare look of being as compelling and must-see TV on the women’s side,” according to Gene Frenette of the FLORIDA TIMES-UNION. Both games, especially the performances of Iowa G Caitlin Clark and UConn G Paige Bueckers, “lived up to hype that usurped any of the men’s Elite Eight matchups.” While the men’s tournament maintained its tradition of first weekend upsets, and N.C. State emerged as a “true Cinderella” behind emerging star C DJ Burns, Jr., “nothing in this March Madness has been as electrifying as watching the brilliance of Clark and Bueckers take center stage.” Ten or twenty years from now, “it’s not a stretch to think this 2024 NCAA tournament with so much star power will be remembered as the biggest breakthrough for women’s hoops.” For the first time, the women’s game is “generating as much or more buzz during March Madness as the men.” Last year’s Iowa-LSU title game attracted a record 9.9 million viewers, which was “obliterated as 12.3 million tuned in to ESPN for the Monday rematch.” Ratings in this tournament “indicate Clark is the biggest needle mover, so the expectation is the Final Four will also have robust numbers.” The Final Four is “just another opportunity for Clark and Bueckers” -- the winner "likely having to get by" unbeaten South Carolina in the NCAA title game -- “to add to the ascending popularity of women’s college basketball” (FLORIDA TIMES-UNION, 4/2).
SHINE BRIGHT LIKE A DIAMOND: In Minneapolis, Michael Rand wrote Monday “was a triumph for women's basketball.” The games “delivered on multiple levels, which is not always the case when contests are so highly anticipated.” The stars “shined brightly.” One could “easily make the argument” that by this stage of both tournaments, the women's version “qualifies as appointment viewing over the men's.” While women's basketball arguably “never has been better than it is right now,” men's college basketball “arguably has never been worse.” The transfer portal combined with NIL have “impacted both the women's and men's games.” But it “hasn't had the same profound, compounding effect on the women's game as the men's.” But each of the four main women's stars on display Monday were “easily identifiable with their programs” -- even USC G JuJu Watkins, a phenom freshman who has “become synonymous with USC” (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 4/2).
EYES ON THE SCREEN: The AP’s Tim Reynolds wrote perhaps the “biggest winner: the women’s game,” which had the March Madness stage all to itself on Monday night with “massive star power delivering two games worthy of the over-the-top billing, and maybe, just maybe, adding a few new fans along the way.” Baseball had a “no-hitter on Monday night;” P Ronel Blanco’s gem for Houston against Toronto “didn’t seem to capture attention the way Iowa-LSU and UConn-USC did.” Suns G Devin Booker scored 52 points, his league-high-tying third game of 50 or more this season; it happened while fellow Bucks Gs Damian Lillard and Patrick Beverley were “tweeting about Watkins and Clark.” In homes, in sports bars from Seattle to Miami, even in NBA locker rooms, the women’s games Monday night “had people staring at televisions” (AP, 4/2). In Austin, Kirk Bohls writes women’s college basketball is "becoming multi-dimensional and is just exploding." Bohls: "Never been hotter. Its television ratings show it. Your eyeballs show it. The game on the court shows it. Now they just have to capitalize on it with a full-court pressure as ESPN plans to with its new eight-year deal with the women’s game. It’s never been in a better place, but the NCAA has to do its part" (AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN, 4/2).
THE CHOSEN ONE: In N.Y., Mike Vaccaro wrote basketball, unlike most sports, “allows for The One.” Other sports have generational stars. Basketball “breeds revolutionaries.” Caitlin Clark “is the latest.” Clark has “changed the game.” Before Clark, even the most “progressive basketball voices were prone to distinguish the best of women’s basketball players that way.” Former WNBAer Sue Bird “was a dynamic women’s player.” Coach Dawn Staley “was a magnificent women’s player.” Mercury G Diana Taurasi “may have been the best women’s player.” Clark has “eliminated the need for the adjective.” Vaccaro: “She is a great basketball player. She makes the sport better. Not her sport. Not women’s basketball. The sport. Basketball. Period” (N.Y. POST, 4/2).
GROWING PAINS: In D.C., Candace Buckner writes when a sport “explodes in popularity, as women’s college basketball has over the past year, the gatekeepers can’t always protect their game from the downside of growth.” Since her team won the 2023 title and LSU F Angel Reese became one of the “most discussed athletes in America,” she has spent a year “equally luxuriating in the light of fame and being singed by it.” But some of those “new eyeballs peering at the women’s game and its stars were also waiting for Reese to fall.” The way Monday night’s game was promoted and anticipated, you “might have thought that only Clark would be allowed to touch the scissors.” The off-court attention follows Clark and “not so much her teammates.” Buckner wrote stars drive leagues and television ratings, but “it seems the networks have little confidence in the attention span of this sport’s newest followers.” So “little that they lean on the most easily digestible storylines of one player vs. another and blow up antics that happen in the heat of the moment.” Other sports have “grown accustomed to that game.” Women’s basketball “is still adjusting.” Everyone "talks about women’s sports, and posts about women’s sports and brings their own agenda to the table when it comes to women’s sports." Players who once might have been known “only to die-hards instead become targets, characters, even caricatures.” These are the “growing pains when a game attracts a new legion of fans” (WASHINGTON POST, 4/2).
