One tournament is going to feature the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer who shoots deep step-back jumpers like Steph Curry. The other tournament’s main character will be a 7-foot, 4-inch center who has made one three-pointer in his entire career.
One tournament is going to test whether this decade’s dominant program can become a dynasty. The other is going to be a roulette wheel of flawed and undependable teams.
One tournament is going to have an abundance of attitude, social media personalities and sideline fashion. The other will require a cheat sheet to identify most of the relevant players and coaches.
On Thursday, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark made official what has long been fait accompli: She’s the greatest, most creative, most exciting and most prolific bucket-getter the women’s college game has ever seen.
And with March fast approaching, her milestone underscored what also should have been obvious for awhile. This year, the women’s NCAA basketball tournament is going to turn the Madness on its head.
Three years ago, the NCAA took a boatload of criticism — much of it well-deserved — for treating the women’s tournament as an afterthought.
Now? The men might as well get used to being the opening act.
Thanks to Clark and South Carolina, Kim Mulkey and JuJu Watkins, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers, the star power and drama this March is decidedly on one end of the gender divide.
Few events in sports can eclipse the spectacle of a men’s Final Four. This year, it’s almost certainly going to happen on the very same weekend.
Put your misogyny aside and just look at these two tournaments side-by-side.
What’s a more compelling story: Can Dawn Staley lead South Carolina to an unbeaten season, or can Purdue finally beat a No. 15 or No. 16 seed?
What’s a bigger draw: Watching Clark fill it up from anywhere on the court, or Zach Edey parking himself in front of the rim and seeing how many times he gets fouled?
What’s more made-for-TV: The garish Mulkey and her reality show of a basketball team trying to go back-to-back, or Dan Hurley and UConn suffocating opponents just like they did last year?
Look, the men’s tournament is going to be great. It always is. There will be upsets and dramatic finishes and new stars who emerge, like that little point guard from Kansas State last year. What’s his name again? Admit it: It took you a second and maybe a Google search to come up with Markquis Nowell.
But the beauty of March is that there will be another Nowell type this year and the year after. Especially in this era, when college basketball’s regular season appeals to a relatively small number of die-hards compared to what it used to be. The fun is in watching and discovering these teams when put under a totally different kind of pressure.
We learn as we go, and it all feels a little bit random. The college basketball experts will tell you they knew how good Florida Atlantic was last season, but let’s be real: When the tournament began, most people who care about college sports couldn’t have identified a single player on the roster or named the coach. Suddenly you look up, and it’s playing in a Final Four.
That’s great theater, and men’s college basketball really needs it. These days, the most-talented players are either playing in college for one year or not at all. Many who stay in college end up changing teams once, even twice. The superstar coaches who spent decades dominating the tournament, like Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim and Jay Wright, have either headed to retirement or, in the case of John Calipari and Tom Izzo, aren’t the forces of nature they used to be.
It’s still a good product; it’s just more emotionally disconnected from the average fan. The players are largely unknown and most of the coaches don’t inspire strong feelings. Does anyone have a strong feeling — positive or negative — about Jon Scheyer or Tommy Lloyd?
This year, though, the women’s tournament is serving up storylines on a silver platter. The friction, the controversy, the dynamism — it’s so one-sided, CBS executives have to be a little bit jealous that their billion-dollar investment into NCAA basketball doesn’t even get the biggest stars of March on their airwaves.
Instead, ESPN and ABC will have the privilege of showing the country whether Clark can drag Iowa back to the championship game. And unlike last year, when it felt as if people were just learning about her or watching her for the first time, now she has a fan base — and haters, including former stars like Sheryl Swoopes. Whatever she does in the tournament, good or bad, is going to be talked about and covered this time like LeBron James trying to win his first title in Miami.
But that’s not all.
Dawn Staley, one of the most celebrated players and personalities in the history of women’s basketball, already has two titles at South Carolina. She looked like a near-lock to get No. 3 last year until Clark’s 41 points overwhelmed the Gamecocks in the semifinals. Now, South Carolina is again on the unbeaten track at 24-0 and blowing out pretty much everyone. Can it finish the job this time?
Besides Clark, the women’s tournament is going to have another virtuoso performer in Watkins, who might be having the best freshman season in the history of the sport for Southern California at nearly 28 points per game.
UConn may have slipped just a bit — Geno Auriemma is title-less since 2016 — but there’s still a familiarity to seeing the Huskies in big games and a sense of real conflict with historic implications when they play the other superpowers.
And then there’s LSU, which on paper should have been a better team this year than last, when the Tigers won a surprise title in Mulkey’s second season.
Instead, LSU has had a weird year with Reese missing four games early in the season for unspecified off-court reasons, and a few surprising losses that have raised questions about whether this team came back with the right focus and intensity. Love her or hate her, though, Mulkey usually has her team ready to play in March — and will give us all plenty of sound bites and over-the-top outfits along the way.
These are all things we can look forward to before the bracket even comes out. Sorry, but the men’s tournament this year just can’t compete with that.
It’s been a good, long run of men’s March Madness being the big show and the women fighting for scraps of attention. This year, the script is going to flip.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Dan Wolken on social media @DanWolken
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