Madness all around

A wide-open tournament brings intrigue to the NCAA women’s basketball tournament

The Iowa women’s basketball team celebrates their spot in the NCAA tournament. (Photo: Iowa Athletics)

Lately, there have been tons of stories reflecting on the five-year anniversary of COVID-19 turning the world upside down. And while there were definitely bigger worries in the world, my thoughts on that time – at least about the very beginning – often revert to one topic:

Women’s basketball.

What a tournament it was going to be in 2020. New teams were emerging. The top spot had never been secure. Any number of teams could have won it.

Sound familiar?

What we didn’t get in 2020, we stand to get in 2025. The teams are different but the unpredictability is back. Who’s going to win? Who really knows? Who doesn’t love that?

In 2020, Sabrina Ionescu-led Oregon started the season No. 1 and South Carolina finished the season on top after the tournament was canceled. Other top-ranked teams that season were UConn and Stanford, while Baylor and Louisville also hung out at No. 2 for a time. The final poll was 1. South Carolina, 2. Oregon, 3. Baylor and 4. Maryland.

What was so exciting to me about that season to me was longtime women’s basketball fans had always heard the “Oh, it’s always the same teams” complaint from non-fans and 2020 looked to end that notion once and for all. (And for what it’s worth, that “same team” people tend to reference is UConn, which hasn’t won a title since 2016; South Carolina’s ascension is new.)

This season has had a similar jumble. South Carolina started the season No. 1, UCLA ended the season on top. In between were also Notre Dame and Texas. UConn and USC have hung out at No. 2.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait. And here are a few things that should make the wait worthwhile:

That’s a big Big Ten

There are more Big Ten teams in the tournament – 12 – than in the conference’s name: UCLA, USC, Michigan State, Michigan, Iowa, Washington, Nebraska, Ohio State, Illinois, Oregon, Maryland and Indiana. That would be impressive if it weren’t so ridiculous.

So far only one of the six that didn’t make it, Wisconsin, has a head coaching job open. You have to wonder just how appealing that and any other job that comes open might be because of the gargantuan task that awaits. It will be like climbing Mount Everest, though there have always been people crazy enough to try that.

A (literally) big concern for Iowa

In a Cedar Rapids Gazette story last week, Iowa Coach Jan Jensen said a best-case scenario for her team would be to not get a team that’s too big inside. Even if the emergence of freshman Ava Heiden has helped the Hawkeyes there, it still can be a challenge for them in the post sometimes.

So what’s up potentially for Iowa? If the Hawks win their first game against Murray State – no easy task – they’ll face Oklahoma. That’s already intriguing for the face-off between Sooner Coach Jennie Baranczyk coaching against her alma mater. But the Sooners also have one of the best in the country in the post – 6-4 junior Raegan Beers, who transferred from Elite Eight team Oregon State after last season.

Beers, a former Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, is averaging 17.5 points and 8.9 rebounds. If a Sooners-Hawkeyes matchup happens, Iowa will have its hands full.

And then there’s the Cyclones

It’s been a frustrating season for Iowa State, going from a top 10 team in the early season to being a play-in team. The Cyclones play a First Four game against Princeton on Wednesday.

Even with the return of their three best players – Audi Crooks, Emily Ryan and Addy Brown – the Cyclones struggled to their 22-11 record. Yet, they did knock off Kansas State near the end of the season and with those three scorers capable of big games, anything could happen with the Clones.

Hooray for the smart women

In an unprecedented season for the Ivy League, three teams are heading to the tournament. Regular-season champion Columbia earned an at-large bid, as did regular-season runner-up Princeton. Harvard snuck in and won the conference tournament and got the automatic bid to make the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2007.

The Ivy League has been a ton of fun to watch the past several years and this season is no exception. And Harvard is no fluke; the Crimson are led by Harmoni Turner, who scored 44 points in the conference tournament semifinal victory over Princeton.

A lot of star power

Anyone who thought the women’s game was going to lose its shine when Caitlin Clark graduated was clearly off their rocker. One superstar has begotten many – kind of like the tribbles in the classic “Star Trek” episode.

There’s JuJu Wakins of USC, already well known and hanging with Jake from State Farm. Stars are so plentiful that Notre Dame has two: Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles. Madison Booker led Texas to a No. 1 ranking this season, a spot now held by UCLA, with Lauren Betts. And back for what seems like her 18th season is UConn’s Paige Bueckers, a fifth-year senior. Another veteran veteran, Hailey Van Lith, has blossomed at TCU after a circuitous route there by way of Louisville and LSU.

If you want a little rap to go with your basketball, there’s LSU’s Flau’Jae Johnson, whose Powerade commercials were ubiquitous throughout the conference tournaments. She’s way more than a rapper, though; the junior guard leads LSU with 18.9 points this season and with teammate Aneesah Morrow right behind her with 18.5, the Tigers are the threat they always are at tournament time.

Georgia Amoore is in the blue of Kentucky this year instead of whatever it is you call the colors of Virginia Tech. Amoore, who was part of the Hokies’ Final Four team two seasons ago, followed Coach Kenny Moore when he took the Wildcats’ job. That’s a duo that knows postseason success.

Invited to the other dance

It shows how spoiled Drake women’s basketball fans are that a 22-win season and a Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament is considered a down year, but Bulldog fans can look at the bright side: It’s another chance, at least one, to see Katie Dinnebier play.

The Bulldog senior and Mid-Major Player of the Year finalist did everything she could to keep Drake’s season alive with 45 points a loss to Murray State in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament semifinals on Saturday.

Drake will host Marquette at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Knapp Center (conveniently not the same time as the Drake men, who play at 6:35 p.m. in Wichita).

Northern Iowa fans – and really, any basketball fan – can appreciate another chance to see point guard Maya McDermott as the Panthers are also playing in the NBIT. The Panthers get a nice spring break road trip out of the deal; they play at Florida at 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Both the Drake and UNI games are on ESPN+.

First Four games are Wednesday and Thursday. NCAA first round games are Friday and Saturday, with second-round games March 23-24.

Full bracket: The ESPN bracket also has a link to enter its Women’s Tournament Challenge.

---

Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. She’s a past winner of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Mel Greenberg Award for her coverage of women’s basketball. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”

I’m happy to join fellow Iowa writers and journalists as part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. The collaborative is more than 70 writers throughout the state - likely some familiar names to longtime Iowa readers - publishing on topics ranging from politics to food to sports and so much more. With a subscription to this newsletter, readers get two weekly compilations of stories: a news roundup on Sundays, and The Flipside, a feature-filled newsletter that arrives on Wednesdays.

Meet the writers here, and see for yourself the great variety the collaborative offers.