The NCAA Basketball Tournament: The Gamecocks and Coaches of the Year, I: The Naismith Women’s Coach of Year, Caitlin Clark and Aliyah Boston
The Final Four games will be shown on ESPN and are able to be streamed on fuboTV. The next coverage will be with LSU vs Virginia Tech and Iowa vs South Carolina.
Two of the tournament favorites are set to play each other, with the winner going on to play for the title.
The game will pit two stars of women’s college hoops directly against each other with the newly-crowned Naismith women’s player of the year, Caitlin Clark facing last year’s recipient and last year’s Naismith women’s defensive player of the year, Aliyah Boston.
Both players have been an inspirational force for their respective teams throughout the month of March and will be looking to lead them one step further with a Final Four win.
The Gamecocks have reached the Final Four of the Big Dance without showing any signs of vulnerability – with their smallest winning margin still in the double digits: 11 points.
South Carolina scored the first five points of the fourth quarter to take the lead. Clark’s two deep 3-pointers and an assist to Czinano gave the Iowans a 67-62 lead.
Boston has contributed to two double-doubles with a brilliant 22-point and 10-rebound performance in South Carolina’s Elite Eight win.
The Gamecocks have been aided by the score of their star player and also by the score of another. The guard is shooting 40.0% for the year and averaging 15.1 points per game.
The Naismith Coach of the Year, for the second year running, said: “They’ve created habits in which they just get the job done. They don’t ask about how long is practice, and what drills are on the practice cards. They just say, ‘Okay, this is what we have to do, let’s get it done.’”
Final Four Men’s Basketball in the Green: Monika Czinano, Monika Clark, and Ann Cox on the O(N) Team
The Hawkeyes have scored 353 points in four playoff games, and will be looking to get revenge on the South Carolina defense.
“We know everything kind of centers around her,” explained the NBA’s record three-point scorer. “But she does a great job of scoring at a high level but also being a playmaker and distributor.”
Alongside Clark, Monika Czinano is another key player for the Hawkeyes. The forward is shooting 67.9% from the floor and scoring 17 points and has 6.6 boards a game.
It is really exciting. Just like you said, everybody has been talking about this matchup for a really long time,” said Boston. “I think it’s just a great game for women’s basketball. I know there will be a lot of people watching the game. It’s exciting to be in that environment.
Clark concurred with her Final Four opponent, adding: “I think people need to realize how many tremendous players there are in our game, how many tremendous coaches there are in our game.”
The match-up between Clark and Boston will be seen as a one-sided affair, but Czinano and Cooke could determine the outcome of the game.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/31/sport/womens-final-four-preview-march-madness-spt-intl/index.html
The Hokies: How Great was Georgia Amoore in March Madness? An NFL All-Big One Prediction of Virginia Tech Against South Dakota, Tennessee and Ohio State
Virginia Tech has had a relatively straightforward route to the Final Four with wins against Chattanooga, South Dakota State, Tennessee and Ohio State – with their smallest winning margin being nine points.
Led by Georgia Amoore’s threat on offense and Elizabeth Kitley’s impact on both ends of the floor, the Hokies represent a serious threat to any challenger.
Amoore averaged 16.3 PPG on the season but has turned it up a notch for March Madness. The Aussie hooper has scored 20+ in all of Tech’s games in the NCAA tournament – including a brilliant 29-point showing in the Sweet 16 against Tennessee.
It is very large. Amoore told the broadcast how it meant so much to advance to the first Final Four in program history.
In the Sweet 16 against Utah the Tigers found themselves down one with 10 seconds to go but managed to come back and win 66-63.
The 6-foot-3-inch forward has racked up an incredible 17.25 rebounds-per-game in the NCAA tournament – including 24 against the Michigan Wolverines in the second-round.
In the first-round victory against Hawaii, Reese had 34 points and 15 rebound, making him the only player in the first seven games who has not had a double-double.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/31/sport/womens-final-four-preview-march-madness-spt-intl/index.html
Caitlin Clark Wins The Semifinals Of The NCAA Tournament And Does She Love Herself: I Wanna Lose My Eye?
Kim Mulkey said after the game that they didn’t have to win a championship to see how much they like the team. I think they’re going, ‘What are we doing in year two. Are you kidding me?’
DALLAS — Caitlin Clark tossed the ball high in the air as the clock ticked down, gave a huge shout-out to her adoring fans and then took off on a gleeful gallop around the court.
In the semifinals of the NCAA tournament, the point guard from Iowa poured in 41 points to set a record and end South Carolina’s perfect season, while also helping her team reach the title game.
We didn’t have anything to lose. I have all the confidence in the world in this group, and they believe right back in me, and that’s all you need,” Clark said. “All we do is believe in one another We love each other so much that we are a true team. If you want an example of a team, that’s what this is.”
They’ll have to beat another SEC team to do that as Iowa (31-6) will face LSU in the title game on Sunday afternoon. The other semifinal was won by Virginia Tech.
“I love me some Caitlin Clark,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “We’ve been talking about being mission-focused a lot this year, and we had a game plan and these guys executed so well. That is South Carolina we just beat, folks. Amazing.”
This was the most talked about and highly anticipated women’s Final Four match up because of the play of Clark and the historic year by South Carolina.
This was Iowa’s first appearance in the Final Four in 30 years. The last time Iowa advanced was in 1993 when they lost to Ohio State in overtime.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/01/1167591163/final-four-caitlin-clark-iowa-south-carolina-ncaa
AP Player of the Year: Mackenna Clark – a Hawkeyes player with 1,000 points and a cancer sufferer
Clark wowed the crowd that included Harper Stribe, a young fan of the team who has been battling cancer. She found out that she had been named the AP Player of the Year in a surprise video.
Clark made a layup after a timeout to put the game out of reach. After a layup by Zia Cooke with 58 seconds left, the Hawkeyes ran the clock down with McKenna Warnock grabbing a huge offensive rebound off a Clark miss with 18 seconds remaining.
“It was very physical.” You’ve got to give them a lot of credit,” Clark said. They’re a terrific team, they’ve had a terrific year, so well-coached.
Clark became the sixth player to score over 1,000 points in a season. She joined former Hawkeyes star Megan Gustafson, breaking her school mark of 1,001. In the season so far, Maddy Siegrist also reached that milestone. Some people were involved, including Kelsey Plum and Odyssey Sims.