We all know that our ladies had a season we will remember forever. And I have a feeling next year might be even better.
But this is more about the emergence of the women's game in general.
https://theathletic.com/4378088/2023/04/03/iowa-lsu-womens-national-cham...
The national championship game between LSU and Iowa absolutely crushed not just the usual ratings for a WCBB game, but a significant number of other sporting events (all of Amazons Thursday night NFL games, every Stanley Cup game for decades, most NY6 bowls that's are not the playoffs, NBA Final games...the list goes on)
I'll admit, I watched more of the womens tournament this year then I ever had. And while a good deal of that clearly had to do with our team, I just found the games to be a bit more interesting (even though the officiating was terrible). Is it because we see good players actually play for 4-5 years and teams build chemistry that has in effect disappeared from the men's game? Is it because we are seeing women that are seriously talented (Kitley, Clark, Amoor, Boston, et all)? Is it because they had an actual Goliath (SC) team and people wanted to see them lose?
Just enjoying the fact that the sport seems to be gaining some serious momentum, and our program seems primed to ascend to the upper tier at exactly the right time.
Comments
Its a shame that such a great event was plagued with such overwhelmingly terrible officiating. If WBB really wants to take hold, you have to hold the officials to a higher standard than whatever they're being held to right now. The players absolutely deserve more than what they are getting.
But it was fun watching them. The game is so much more quick and athletic than what I remember when I was a student, and I'm not surprised that viewership is up. Investment in women's sports from the ground up over the last 20+ years is very clearly paying off and you're seeing the quality of athlete rise across the board and that's only going to be a great thing for the future of women's sports.
I think a lot of the country had this notion that all WBB was going to be a 41-32 affair day in day out, until recently women's team started dropping 100 burgers and specific players were doing triple doubles almost routinely. It was a blast getting invested in it this year
Can't agree more. I was pleasantly surprised at the level of play and the general vibe during the games. Caitlin Clark heaving threes like Steph Curry was a big, wow. The officiating is still pretty poor comparatively and I think some of that may have to do with physical abilities and profiles from one team to the other, and having to navigate that with different people.
I would have said 20 years ago that it is pathetic to tout your wbb team. It was like UVA trying to one up us on their fantastic diving team while we throttled them in FB. I am not sure if the tables have now swung in that direction for me because I am so deep in a dead suffocation for a football team that resembles anything like what it was 20 years ago that I will lean on a sport at a similar level of promotion/stature (men's or women's basketball) to make me feel that love, pride and happiness again.
Weird, when I click on that link, it takes me to Tech Side Line.
NCAA made it important to announce and then deliver an ALL female officiating crew for the final four games. I am a big fan of this strategy, assuming that the officiating talent level with actual game experience and understanding of the magnitude of the moment aligns with this decision. This was a great example of the NCAA getting over the tips of their skis and making this moment about something other then the awesome people who coach and play this game. The NCAA bureaucracy continue to miss the mark as to why we love college athletics so much... It is never been and will never be about them. Please stop getting in the way and do what is best for the student athletes. That is your only credo.
I do have to say, in them making that announcement (refs being all women crew), to see the officiating being so bad and not just from our perspective but from game broadcasters and coaches hinting at it etc, just made me laugh.
Like "Look at our progress!!" to only have it suck so bad. That's the problem with having certain people be refs just so you can say "look at us".
Certainly not against an all women's ref but as you mentioned, let their officiating talent level dictate that.
well...this is... a take
To be fair, women's officiating pretty much sucked all year regardless of genders or mix of genders. I'm not sure these four were really any worse than any other random selection of four women's refs.
I feel that it should be treated similarly to other sports where the best graded officials or crews are awarded the responsibility of officiating in the post season, and those same grades get applied in the tournament to determine the officials that get to officiate the final 3 games. When the stakes get this high the players and fans deserve the best possible officials.
If WBB was officiated as ticky tack as I feel the men's game is, I bet we win the title this year. We looked like the best overall finesse team from what I saw. If the refs next year continue to allow elbows, punches, over the backs, hook and holds, taunting, coach interference, etc; then I think we get close, but likely have a similar result to what we had this year. We could over come that adversity and win or collapse once the physicality gets too out of hand.
I feel that they have to get this right after this year
Rule 10 Section 12 Article 4 3 d.1 :
d. All bench personnel shall remain seated on the bench while the ball is live, except as follows:
1. The head coach may stand and shall remain in the team's coaching box.
https://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/WBR23.pdf
Is there something else in there about a head coach taking a swipe at an official while the game is live?
There is a subclause that this is allowable if the coach is for an SEC team.
Or even if they just push the issue, because, well, the NCAA has a backbone of gelatin.
The national media narrative around trash talk is dumb. They are competitors. As long as no one goes full Ron Artest, full Todd Bertuzzi or half Paul Johnson's triple option everything is finde.
If this is specifically about Reese, I agree on the surface. But this subject continues to make headlines, she keeps responding, and the narrative continues to solidify itself.
Ron Artest and Todd Bertuzzi didn't just happen out of nowhere, the culture of those sports got poisoned to its breaking point at which moment they crossed the line.
What we're seeing in women's basketball right now, with these athletes seeking out opportunities to get up in someone's face taking shit, its only a matter of time before that powderkeg blows. And you've already seen this start to happen with a Memphis player punching a Bowling Green player in the postgame handshake line after an NIT game a couple weeks back
The Memphis player was criminally charged with assault for it as well. So yeah, my worry is that we're going to see this blow over if it isn't reigned back under control. And that moment might be closer than we think given how rapidly it seems to be spinning out of control.
If the NCAA doesn't handle it, eventually regular law enforcement will.
And it's not like Clark had been restrained all tournament either. She had been showing out, as they say, after made shots and wins and while not as blatant toward another player as Reese, were definitely at the expense of the opposing team and came during leads.
I don't think taunting or showing out is all that bad as long as it is subtle and non-invasive.
I think the main issue here is we've never seen a player in a championship setting whose team was up big with seconds left; purposefully hunt down an opposing team's best player to taunt her over and over. Then when the game ended with confetti falling to the floor, continue to follow that opposing player around the court to taunt her some more instead of going to celebrate with her team.
That to me is the classless part. If you just non-discreetly do the ring gesture or something while on the free throw line towards the end of the game, I doubt no one would be talking about this.
oh yeah, for sure, Reese was trying to denigrate the opponent in a classless manner vs Clark's look-at-me celebration that comes off as taunting. If Iowa had won, I think Clark would have given the LSU team zero attention after the handshake line.
I think the difference people are talking about would be no attention after the handshake line as opposed to skipping the handshake line and still taunting.
That's what took it beyond trash talk and then her garbage explanation on how Clark disrespected her South Carolina girls.
Only thing Iowa did in that game was what every ACC team did against Bede. Left the one player all alone putside because she couldn't shoot.
Clark didn't do the hand thing or any other gestures to SC. She then continued into the post game that she had planned to do it the whole game.
The more comical part to me is that Reese was about the 4th best person on her own team in that game. And that was with the officiating helping her out multiple times.
Add in the declining an invitation to the White House but would go to the Obamas and she sealed it for me. She spoke for her team and school without running it by them.
I get being upset at the comment Jill Biden made but that hadn't actually been confirmed by anyone that matters. Honestly over teams being invited to the White House all together. It's now become a political/social media disaster on more than one occasion.
Reese loves Reese. That's all this is about.
In her defense, who doesn't?
wbb will go to the back burner in the world of sports in the next week and this will all be nothing anyone pays attention to. Reese will be non-relevant and that should hit her rightfully so.
The WBB tournament was heavily promoted on ESPN and elsewhere like I don't remember seeing before. More marketing = more views. I really think it's that simple.
I agree. But there was a reason for that. ESPN didn't just decide to spend extra $$$.
They recognized that there were star players to promote, the games would likely be competitive...and the real elephant in the room...the men's game is not that great right now and they saw an opportunity.