/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73956824/2199925365.0.jpg?w=1000&resize=1000,500 "7 college basketball freshmen ready to ball in womens March Madness bracket, ranked")
March is when stars are born. It’s when players are asked to step up in crucial moments, when they attempt the improbable and pull off the seemingly impossible. In basketball, the stage doesn’t get any bigger than March Madness. It feels like we see a few freshmen really break out during the NCAA Tournament every season. Last year was no exception. We watched JuJu Watkins scored 30 points in a Sweet 16 win over Baylor, we saw Hannah Hidalgo stuff the stat sheet in a second round victory over Ole Miss, and we were astonished by Audi Crooks’ record-setting performance – 40 points on 18-of-20 shooting to go along with 12 rebounds – in an unlikely triumph over Maryland. This March, we have more stellar rookies to pay attention to.
Author Archives: Mitchell Northam
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73945773/2203714210.0.jpg?w=1000&resize=1000,500 "Ignore the Big 12 Tournaments incredibly ugly court and appreciate this awesome 41-point performance")
07
Mar
Mar
Let’s get this out of the way first: the court design at the Big 12 women’s basketball tournament is awful, atrocious, distracting and ridiculous. The floor in Kansas City, Missouri, was designed through a partnership with “Undefeated Inc.” which bills itself as an “authentic lifestyle brand and sneaker store inspired by sports, art, music and street culture.” And this is what they came up with, a basketball court that looks like a wildly bad game of tic-tac-toe. It makes Oregon’s court look normal. It’s unclear what the Big 12 and this brand were going for here, but it’s not good. It pales in comparison to the colorful design at the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina. But reader, I’m asking you to ignore this appalling hardwood design for a moment.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73935764/2201191581.0.jpg?w=1000&resize=1000,500 "JuJu Watkins cements her case for the best player in womens college basketball as USC beats UCLA again")
02
Mar
Mar
On the road, in a rival’s sold-out arena, with the conference title and NCAA Tournament seeding implications on the line, the USC Trojans oozed confidence. Even as they endured several players dealing with foul trouble, even as the UCLA Bruins cut the deficit to two possessions in the third quarter, Lindsay Gottlieb’s team never flinched. The reason why, it seemed to be, was because they had JuJu Watkins and their opponent did not. On national television Saturday night and in front of a crowd that included basketball royalty and celebrities – from Trojans’ legend Cheryl Miller to singer John Legend – USC captured the Big Ten regular season title in its first season in the league, defeating UCLA for the second time this year, 80-67. Powered by Watkins’ eye-popping stat
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73931780/2195901818.0.jpg?w=1000&resize=1000,500 "We arent talking enough about how good LSUs Aneesah Morrow is")
28
Feb
Feb
When this women’s college basketball season began, most folks figured that the race for the national player of the year would come down to three returning guards: UConn’s Paige Bueckers, USC’s JuJu Watkins and Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo. And indeed, all three players have been mightily impressive this season and likely secured spots on the All-American First Team. A fourth player quickly rose to the top to join them in that debate and conversation in UCLA center Lauren Betts, who is averaging about 20 points and 10 rebounds per game and is the nucleus of a Bruins’ squad that started the year 23-0 and looks like a legit contender for the national title. But it feels like there’s a fifth player we should be talking about for a spot on