The Caitlin Clark Economic Effect: Tickets for the NCAA women's Final Four match-up between Clark's Iowa and UConn have more than doubled that of the men's Final Four. Resale tickets for the women's game are averaging around 3200 dollars, whereas the mens resale prices are averaging 1100 dollars. That is definitely a first in NCAA basketball. #GirlPower.
The game itself, UConn's defense was smothering the Hawkeyes offense. UConn had 11 steals, 13 points off of 12 Iowa turnovers, and held Clark to just six points and 0 for 3 shooting, and went into halftime leading 32-26 at halftime. A different Iowa team came out of the locker room, and with Clark starting to drop baskets, tying UConn in the third. The 4th quarter had Iowa surging ahead, but then UConn clawed their way back and it came down to the last seconds in a nail-biter, but in this heavyweight showdown, Iowa held on for a 71-69 victory, and a second consecutive trip to the NCAA women's finals against South Carolina. 26 points in the first half, 45 points in the second half and only five turnovers helped A LOT.
And once again, the Caitlin effect strikes, as the Iowa-UConn game scored another record 14.2 million viewers! And also got their own Saturday Night Live moment in the cold open!
In the other women's Final Four game, #1 ranked and undefeated South Carolina rolled over North Carolina State, 78-59. (Yes, you would be correct, I did not see this game!) :)
In the men's Final Four, Perdue beat SCState, and UConn beat Alabama and will match up in the finals on Monday. Women's NCAA Final: Iowa came out hot to open the game, going on a 10-0 run, before South Carolina put a run on of their own, but with Caitlin Clark dropping 18 points in the 1st quarter alone, Iowa was up, 27-20. Clark with those 18 points has now become the number one scorer in NCAA Tournament history! South Carolina opened the 2nd quarter with a 7-0 run, to tie the game, and now the scoring has gone back and forth in this 2nd quarter, with South Carolina's bench already scoring 20 points off the bench. South Carolina's offensive rebound game (12) kept them in the game, and with a late steal in the final seconds, Carolina is leading 49-46 at the half! South Carolina continued their impressive display on defense, holding Iowa to just 13 points in the third to lead by 68-59 going into the 4th quarter. The Gamecocks in the 4th quarter continue their dominance on the offensive rebounds, with 25 points on second chances as they extend their lead, but the Hawkeyes went on an 8-0 run, pulling Iowa to within six of South Carolina with five minutes to go! The Gamecocks were relentless on both sides of the court in the final five minutes, and the South Carolina Gamecocks held on to win, 87-75 to remain undefeated and claim the NCAA Women's Championship!
Final thoughts: I had NO PLANS to be watching the March Madness, but I got lured into it,
and then with the buzz I was hearing about the women's tourney, I turned on a game, and I was hooked! Why? Hard to say, other than players like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese were just FUN to watch! This years Women's March Madness tourney has put women's basketball getting its rightful recognition in the game of sports.
Men's NCAA Final: It's two #1 seeds battling in the desert at Glendale, Arizona as the UConn Huskies take on the Purdue Boilermakers for the championship. Not as familiar with the players, but lets see how this plays out! It was a pretty even game, with UConn leading at the half, 36-30, but then the Huskies blew the game open in the 2nd half, with Cam Spencer and his teammates building up a huge double-digit lead. Didn't help Purdue that two-time NCAA Player of the Year Zach Edey scored 37 points, and most of the Boilermakers team didn't show up, as the UConn Huskies make history as they are your 2024 NCAA Champions for a second year in a row, beating Purdue, 75-60. And for the first time in NCAA history, the women's championship game had 18.9 million viewers, beating the men's 12.7 million!
BREAKING: Stanford women's coach, the winningest coach in the women's NCAA, is retiring! Some numbers via ABC7 news: 38 seasons with Stanford Women's Basketball.
3 national championships.
14 final Fours.
The NCAA's winningest basketball coach. male of female!
Truly a legend and iconic. Wish her well in her future endeavors!
Warriors: The Golden State Warriors came to Houston battling to stay in the playoffs, where they held the 10th and last playoff spot, and the Splash Brothers, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson with 29 points apiece, overcame 20 plus turnovers to extend their win steak over the Rockets to 13 straight games, and their current win streak to a season-high six games, and won, 133-110. It's a quick flight to Dallas for the next night.
In Dallas, the Mavericks were without their their star, Luka Doncic (knee) tonight, which is a good thing for the Dubs, but Jonathan Kuminga (knee) misses another game, and Andrew Wiggins (ankle) is out as well. First half was a battle, with the Dubs up 54-52. Second half Dallas and Kyrie Irving took control of the game, but then the Dubs made their own surge, and it came down to the last 4 seconds of the game, where Klay just missed a potential game winner, giving Dallas the win, 108-106. Still a 6-2 road trip, that covered over 17 thousand miles is a good road trip! Back to Chase for Sunday's game against the Utah Jazz!
After that long road trip, Golden state returns home to Chase Center and Curry is not playing , as Coach Kerr wants Steph to have a night off. Before the Dubs hit the court, they learned that via Houston's loss earlier in the day, the Dubs have CLINCHED the 10th seed in the playoffs! Playing a young Utah team, the Dubs came on hot, and except for one push late in the 2nd quarter, have been in control of this game. Klay was on FIRE, scoring 25 and dropping threes, and Jonathan Kuminga is back, and he dropped 12 along with Brandin Podzienski's 12 to give the Dubs a 64-58 lead at halftime. The Warriors ended up winning this game in strong fashion, 118-110 with Klay finishing with 32 points, Kuminga, after missing six games, with 21, and rookies Pods and Trey Jackson-Davis with 16 helps. Onto a big game against the Lakers in LA on Tuesday.
In LA, Dubs came out hot in the first half, as it was raining threes, 15 in the first half, and Draymond Green is 5 for 5 on threes- applying to be a Splash Brothers, Dray? Eight blocks helped, Wiggins and Thompson also balling with their threes, as Golden State leads at halftime, 71-60 over the Lakers. Lakers came out hard in the 3rd, but Dubs went on a 15-5 run to post a 17 point led after 3rd quarter. 4th quarter, LaBron James and the Lakers made a charge, but the Dubs kept draining threes and win the game, 134-120. Some stats: Dubs made 26 threes, 11 blocks, 59 percent field goal shooting, a crazy 64 percent three-point shooting, and 16 of the last 20 road wins, Back home for Portland , and by next blog post will be who/where the Dubs will be playing in the playoffs!
BAM! Eye-candy/thirst trap time! And the dude in the pic is referenced later!
SF Giants: The San Francisco Giants beat the San Diego Padres, 3-2 on a 9th inning walk-off hit and a SAFE call on the throw to the plate as Matt Chapman scored the winning run in the Giants home opener at Oracle Park. Starter Jordan Hicks looks to be the real deal, going seven innings and gave up just one run. A fun part of the Opening Day ceremonies was having San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel and linebacker Fred Warner throw out the first pitch. Let's just say that these great 49ers should stick to the football field! We also had 49ers punter Mitch Wishnowsky do the first ever punt into McCovey Cove! This needs to be an annual tradition!
Saturday game- easy to report on. Keenan Wynn started for the Giants, gave up a grand slam to the Padres in the first inning, and absolutely nothing happened for the rest of the game, as the Giants lost, 4-0 to San Diego.
Sunday game, and another offensive power outage from the Giants. Starter Logan Webb
gave up two runs in seven innings of work, but the Giants only had 3 hits going into the 8th, where a costly error allowed the tying run to score, and then later Matt Chapman poked a single into right to bring in a run and a 3-2 lead going into the top of the 9th. Camilo Doval then shut the door on the Padres and San Francisco gets the 3-2 win!
Next up for the Giants is a series with the Washington Nationals, and the Giant s debut of perhaps their biggest free agent signing, 2033 Cy Young award winning pitcher, Blake Snell. Snell only lasted three innings, throwing 72 pitches, too many balls, and left with the Giants down 3-1, after three. The bats once again remained as cold as a Fargo winter, and the Giants fell to the Nats, 8-1. Next game had Kyle Harrison starting and he had 8 strikeouts in 6 innings, but got the no-decision as the Giants left 11 runners on base, including a no outs, bases loaded situation in the bottom of the ninth, and could not score, and lost 5-3. It's a day game start for Jordan Hicks, and once again, a Giants pitcher had a great game, just giving up one run in seven innings, The difference in this game? San Francisco got 12 hits, had their first two stolen bases via Tyler Fitzgerald, and scored seven runs to win the game, 7-1! A feel good win as they now get ready to fly off to Florida for six games agains the Florida teams! BREAKING: Shohei Ohtani's interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, has been charged by the Feds for stealing more than 16 million dollars from Ohtani. More to come!
Locker room news Entertainment Edition: I've been watching RuPaul's Drag Race this season, and while it has had a "meh" feel to it, the final episode before the finale was entertaining and revealing. First we had the final four (there's that term again!) queens lip-syncing underwater for the last mini-challenge - which I found very creative and fun! Next the queens had to write a book about themselves, do a photoshoot, then an interview to promote said memoir. One queen stood out, and won this weeks challenge, overcoming her insecurities to show Ru and the judges her vulnerable side. Next up was the elimination challenge, and since these four queens were my picks to be the final four, the question was would all four go through, or would one queen get the chop, and sure enough one queen did sashay away, much to my disappointment. We have the reunion show this week before the finale in two weeks to crown the next RuPaul Drag Race Champion.
A TV show I have watched from it's very start on Fox, and then jumped to ABC this season, 9-1-1, got a LOT of buzz recently, when one of it's popular lead characters found himself on a receptive end of a kiss from another dude. You can see that clip here:
Buck, the firefighter who gets the smooch from Tommy the helicopter pilot, has been on the show since the beginning, and has been with several female romantic partners over the past six seasons. in the last few seasons, Buck has formed a great friendship with Eddie, a fellow fire fighter who has a disabled son. Myself and a lot of other fans have found that when these three characters are together, we are screaming for a "Buddie" relationship, as they so, so seem like a perfect same-sex family together, but alas, both characters are hetero- identified up until last week's above scene with Buck. While I still would love for "Buddie" to be the endgame for this series, Buck having a straight-identified friend on his side as Buck navigates his bi-sexuality is important.
Bonus eye-candy and. content to above: "Buddie" Buck and Eddie:
I'm posting 2 links here about actor Oliver Stark's reactions after the episode dropped and then the second link of Oliver's response to the haters out there! https://ew.com/911-buck-tommy-kiss-bisexual-oliver-stark-interview-8624837
Breaking: OJ Simpson has died from cancer at the age of 76. That is all ia have to say on the matter.
Music video of the week: I know some of you saw this coming!
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