Emma Hruby
Mar 12, 2024
UConn won its 22nd Big East Tournament title on Monday with a 78-42 win over Georgetown.
Paige Bueckers was named the most outstanding player of the tournament, one year after missing out on the tournament with an ACL tear. It continued what has been a triumphant return from injury for Bueckers, who is set to return next year for the Huskies rather than declare for the WNBA.
Bueckers averaged 27.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and four blocks per game in the tournament, while also shooting above 50 percent field goal percentage.
"A year ago I would have done anything to be in basketball shoes instead of streetwear and to be playing in the most important month of basketball," Bueckers said postgame. "I wanted to embrace it and have fun. I'm extremely grateful and happy to be playing basketball."
The Huskies haven’t lost a conference championship since 2013. But for head coach Geno Auriemma, this title was special.
The team has been once again marred by injuries this season, with five players out for the season. That includes Azzi Fudd and Caroline Ducharme, both of whom were anticipated to factor heavily for the Huskies. Also absent for the last two games was Aaliyah Edwards, who sat out with a broken nose.
"I don't think any of [the other titles] were quite as challenging for this team and these kids," Auriemma said.
For Georgetown, the title game was its first championship appearance in school history, coming off the team's best season since 2011-12. Their semifinal win Sunday also came on the same day as what would have been coach Tasha Butts' 42nd birthday.
Butts died of breast cancer on Oct. 23, and members of the team's staff wore pink for the championship game in honor of their former coach.
"I'm a very spiritual person," forward Graceann Bennett said. "And I have no doubt in my mind that the way things happened for us and that energy was divine."
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Emma Hruby
Mar 13, 2024
Texas beat Iowa State to win the Big 12 tournament championship on Tuesday, in a final score of 70-53.
Freshman Madison Booker, who was the first freshman to win Big 12 Player of the Year, led all scorers with 26 points. It’s the team’s second tournament title in the last three years.
“I’m proud of my kids because we beat a hell of a team tonight. A well-coached team,” said Texas coach Vic Schaefer. “To go win a championship in this league against the teams we went through — it’s pretty special.”
Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly called Texas a “Final Four team” in their matchup, with the Longhorns avenging a loss to the Cyclones in last year’s Big 12 tournament final.
Despite losing Rori Harmon to injury earlier this year, Texas has won 12 of their last 13 games, losing just one game to Oklahoma. Booker has been a big part of that, putting up 20 or more points in eight of those 13 games.
“Madison Booker was player of the year for a reason,” Iowa State’s Emily Ryan said afterward, “and she showed it tonight.”
Booker was named the tournament’s most outstanding player, having averaged 21.3 points per game. Aaliyah Moore and Shalyee Gonzales contributed heavily in the title game, a sign of the all-around effort from a team that has been through a lot this season.
“They’re just tough, you know? We’ve had so much adversity throughout the course of the season,” said Schaefer, whose team lost star guard Rori Harmon to a torn ACL in December and had several others miss time with injuries. “These kids just said, ’OK, tell us how to do it and we’ll do it. What do you want us to do?”
Emma Hruby
Mar 13, 2024
Stanford star Cameron Brink announced on Tuesday that she will be entering the 2024 WNBA draft.
Brink is a projected lottery pick for the upcoming WNBA draft. She won the Pac-12 Player of the Year this year, and went back-to-back on Defensive Player of the Year awards. While she had one year of eligibility remaining, she took a similar path to Iowa star Caitlin Clark, who is also opting to make the jump to the professional level.
In a post on social media, she called her four years at Stanford “nothing short of life changing.”
“Although I am excited for that next chapter, we still have unfinished business and so much to accomplish in my final season at Stanford,” she wrote.
The Cardinal lost the Pac-12 tournament to USC, but Brink still leaves college basketball having won a NCAA championship in 2021, and six Pac-12 titles between the regular season and conference tournament. She also helped Stanford to the Final Four in 2022, and the team is a projected 1-seed in this year’s NCAA tournament.
"Cam has had an exceptional college career and fully embraced what it means to be a Stanford student-athlete during her time on The Farm," head coach Tara VanDerveer said in a statement. "She worked hard to improve each and every year, helped us win a national championship, and has a lengthy list of very well-deserved awards and accomplishments. Simply put, she'll go down as one of the best in program history."
Emma Hruby
Mar 12, 2024
Sunday’s Big Ten championship between Iowa and Nebraska was the most-watched women’s basketball conference tournament game ever on any network.
The game, which aired on CBS at noon ET, delivered an average of 3.021 million viewers. It also peaked with 4.450 million viewers in overtime.
It’s the most-watched women’s college basketball game on CBS in 25 years, and was the most-watched basketball game of the day.
It’s the latest in what has been a season of record-breaking numbers for Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes. Her final regular season game at Iowa brought in 4.42 million viewers on FOX, making it the most-watched women’s college basketball game in FOX Sports history.
Iowa’s previous matchup against Nebraska this year clocked in at 1.77 million viewers on Super Bowl Sunday. And more than one million viewers tuned in to see the Hawkeyes play games against Maryland and Indiana as well.
In total, Iowa has boasted the five most-watched games this season, with January’s LSU vs. South Carolina matchup on ESPN coming in sixth.
So far this season, women’s college basketball viewership is up 60 percent on all national networks.
Emma Hruby
Mar 12, 2024
Coco Gauff won her final match as a teenager on Monday, capping off what has been an astounding run.
Since bursting onto the scene with a win over Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2019 – and becoming the youngest player in the tournament’s history to qualify for the main draw at just 15 years old – Gauff hasn’t stopped her ascent.
In the almost five years since, Gauff has won the US Open, been a finalist at the French Open, been named one of TIME’s Women of the Year, been a cover girl on Vogue and catapulted to third in the world rankings. She’s also made the semifinals or better in three of the four major tournaments, and has made it to the fourth round at Wimbledon twice.
She’s reached a world No. 1 ranking in doubles, in August 2022, alongside partner Jessica Pegula, and twice made the finals of a Grand Slam in doubles.
On Monday, her experience helped her shake off a slow start, with Gauff beating Lucia Bronzetti 6-2, 7-6(5) in the third round at Indian Wells. And while it wasn’t always perfect, one thing Gauff has learned thus far in her career is how to win when she’s not always perfect.
"The mentality is the reason why I'm playing and the reason why I'm being successful," Gauff said. "I'm not always playing my best, but mentally when I show that each match I'm not going to give up, it gives something for the opponent to think about."
She’ll turn 20 on Wednesday, the same day as her fourth-round matchup against Elise Mertens, who ousted Naomi Osaka in the third round. If you ask Gauff what she’d like for her birthday, she doesn’t quite know.
“I don’t know,” Gauff said in her on-court interview. “I’m just happy to be alive. I’m really happy to see 20.”
