CLEVELAND (AP) — Caitlin Clark’s last college games are booked. The record-breaking Iowa star, who has been basketball’s biggest story all season, will try to win a national title this weekend in the Final Four. Clark scored 41 points on Monday night as the Hawkeyes avenged a loss to LSU in last year’s championship game to earn a spot in Cleveland. Iowa will face UConn in Friday’s second semifinal. The Huskies are making their 23rd appearance under Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma. The first semifinal will pit undefeated South Carolina, making its fourth straight trip with coach Dawn Staley, against North Carolina State.
UNDATED (AP) — Caitlin Clark can claim another record — the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history. Iowa’s 94-87 victory over LSU averaged 12.3 million viewers on ESPN, according to Nielsen. Clark scored 41 points as the Hawkeyes avenged last year’s loss to the Tigers in the national championship game. It was one of the most-viewed games in any sport other than NFL football over the past year. Iowa-LSU outdrew all but of the five games in last year’s NBA Finals, along with the clinching game of last year’s World Series. The previous biggest audience for women’s college basketball was the 1983 national title game between Southern California and Louisiana Tech.
CHICAGO (AP) — A judge has denied Northwestern’s motion to dismiss former coach Pat Fitzgerald’s $130 million lawsuit against the school claiming he was wrongly fired in the wake of a hazing scandal. Cook County Circuit Judge Daniel J. Kubasiak ruled Tuesday that Fitzgerald made a strong enough argument to keep the case going. A trial is set for April 2025. Fitzgerald was initially suspended for two weeks and then fired last year after 17 years as head coach of the Wildcats. The school said he had a responsibility to know that hazing was occurring and should have stopped it. Fitzgerald denies wrongdoing.
NEW YORK (AP) — Four assistant coaches arrested in a 2017 FBI probe designed to clean up college basketball are Black. All are out of the sport, banned by the NCAA. One coach, Book Richardson, tells The Associated Press he knows why: Because Black assistants were the low-hanging fruit — the ones on the front lines making connections with recruits. The numbers back him up. An AP analysis of the six biggest conferences in college hoops reveals that Blacks hold nearly 60% of the riskier assistants’ jobs, but fewer than 30% of head-coaching jobs. And while Richardson and his Black counterparts remain on the outside, most of the white coaches whose teams were targeted in the probe are still working.
UNDATED (AP) — Black coaches in the top six men’s college basketball leagues are still facing a tough climb in going from assistant to the top job. An analysis by The Associated Press found Black coaches holding 59.4% of assistant jobs in the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences for the 2022-23 season. But the head-coach rate stood at just 29.9%. Richard Lapchick is founder of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport. He says the percentage of Black coaches holding top jobs across all of Division I has largely been stagnant around 25% going back decades.
UNDATED (AP) — Caitlin Clark is going to the Final Four this weekend with yet another milestone on her resume: She’s the all-time women’s Division I leader in points per game, too. For now, at least. Clark’s 41-point effort that led Iowa past LSU lifted her career scoring average to 28.47 points per game. That puts her No. 1 on the all-time Division I women’s points per game list, just ahead of Mississippi Valley State’s Patricia Hoskins. She averaged 28.38 points in 110 games from 1985 through 1989. Clark needed 30 points to pass Hoskins. She would need at least 17 points against UConn on Friday night to keep her career average ahead of Hoskins.
UNDATED (AP) — Americans were in sports bars from coast to coast on Monday night, eyes glued to televisions and even movie screens. This wasn’t “Monday Night Football.” This was Monday Night women’s basketball. Caitlin Clark and Iowa topped Angel Reese and LSU. Paige Bueckers and UConn topped JuJu Watkins and USC. The rewards for Iowa and UConn were trips to this weekend’s Final Four. But the biggest winner might have been the women’s game, which seems to be soaring in popularity because of its star power. And Monday’s matchups did not disappoint. ESPN says the LSU-Iowa game drew 12.3 million viewers, the biggest ever audience for women’s basketball.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Caitlin Clark and Iowa are back in the Final Four again. So are Dawn Staley and undefeated South Carolina. The women’s basketball world will descend on Cleveland for the national semifinals on Friday and the championship game two days later. Next up for Iowa is UConn. Staley’s team will face North Carolina State, which is making its first appearance in the Final Four since 1998. A lot of attention will be on Clark, which Staley doesn’t mind, because it means her unbeaten team is flying a bit under the radar. It’s the second consecutive year that South Carolina has reached the Final Four undefeated.
