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If Caitlin Clark leaves Iowa with a national title, she will have earned it all.
The NCAA tournament selection committee did Clark and the Hawkeyes no favors in the group of women which was released on Sunday night. Sure, they are the number one favorite, as expected. They will host the first and second rounds at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, where they have lost two games in the last two seasons. They’re in the Albany regional, which is an easier trip for their die-hard fans than the other regional in Portland, Oregon.
But the actual games? Wow.
There is a potential Sweet 16 matchup with Kansas State, which Iowa has already played twice this season, losing at home and winning on a neutral court. A rematch of last year’s national title game against LSU looms in the regional final. If it’s not Angel Reese and the Tigers, then it will probably be second-seeded UCLA, which is being tested after the tough Pac-12 season.
And that’s all before the Final Four!
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If Clark and the Hawkeyes make it to Cleveland, Southern Cal and freshman phenom JuJu Watkins would likely be waiting for them. If they earn a spot in the title game, there’s a good chance their opponent will be No. 1 overall seed South Carolina, which would be eager for revenge after Clark swept the Gamecocks in the Final Four last year. past.
So yeah, have fun with it.
“In my opinion, they have the hardest path. This is the hardest path,” ESPN analyst Andraya Carter said during the selection show, as Rebecca Lobo agreed.
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This at least answers the question of whether the committee plays favorites. If so, the committee would have ensured that Clark and Iowa had a direct path to Cleveland, and I don’t mean via Interstates 80 and 90.
“We’re not trying to get certain matchups or anything like that,” Lisa Peterson, chairwoman of the selection committee, said after the bracket was posted. “I know what it looks like now, but when we’re there, we don’t see them that way. “We’re just putting them in numerical order.”
Honestly, no one would have blamed the committee if it had tried to give Clark and Iowa an easier path.
Clark has been the most exciting player in all of college basketball this season. She wowed basketball lovers and casual fans alike with her assault on the record books, and they continued to stick around to see what more she can accomplish. His final four games drew more than a million viewers each, with the regular-season finale where he passed Pete Maravich to become college basketball’s all-time leading scorer and the Big Ten tournament title game. , both averaging more than 3 million viewers.
Celebrities want to see her, little kids want to be her. Why wouldn’t the committee want to continue this for as long as they could?
Because he couldn’t, in the first place. The top four seeds from the same conference have to be in different groups, and the Pac-12 skewed things by having four of them: No. 1 Southern California; UCLA and Stanford, No. 2 seeds; Oregon State, three seeds. That was a significant factor in how the committee put all of these pieces of the puzzle together to form the bracket.
But more specifically, women’s football does not need support. Clark is a certified supernova, but there’s a lot more compelling in the game beyond her.
There are stories and stars galore throughout this year’s field. South Carolina is trying, once again, to complete an undefeated season. There’s Generation Next, with Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, South Carolina’s Milaysia Fulwiley and Texas’ Madison Booker joining Watkins as freshman phenoms. UConn and Paige Bueckers have been under the radar due to injuries and inconsistency, but they made their way into the Big East tournament.
And let’s not forget the traveling soap opera of Kim Mulkey and her LSU team.
Yes, the tournament rumors will be toned down a bit if Clark and Iowa aren’t in Cleveland. But there is a really easy way to avoid it. Clark and Iowa will have to win.
He’s largely forgotten now, but few gave the Hawkeyes a chance last year against South Carolina. The Gamecocks brought a 42-game winning streak to the Final Four showdown, and all but a handful won by double digits. South Carolina was bigger and more experienced, having won the national title the previous season.
Clark didn’t flinch in the slightest. He dropped 41 points on South Carolina and also had eight assists. Of Iowa’s 28 field goals, he scored or assisted on all but five. He played 38 minutes, despite picking up his second foul with 8:17 left in the second quarter. Every time South Carolina tried to pull away, Clark made a monster play to get the Gamecocks back.
Iowa also wasn’t the favorite in this month’s Big Ten tournament, finishing second in the regular season behind Ohio State. But in the finals against Nebraska, a team that had beaten Iowa a month earlier, Clark almost single-handedly chased down the Cornhuskers to force overtime, and Iowa went from there to its third straight tournament title.
He has ice in his veins, and the higher the stakes, the better Clark plays. He’ll have to do it again in the NCAA Tournament because Iowa’s path to the title isn’t easy. It’s quite the opposite.
Email Nancy Armor at narmour@usatoday.com or follow her on social media. @nrarmour