It’s April but guess what? March Madness is still in my life and I’m so happy about it. Sunday night was the women’s NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis. After the tournament is over, everyone should get the hell out of there. No really, leave.
When Stanford ended UConn’s 90 game win streak in December, everyone penciled in the rematch for the NCAA Championship. A pair of number two seeds had something else in mind. There hasn’t been a championship game on the women’s side without a number one seed since 1994, so what happened last night was kinda sorta a big deal.
The first game saw #2 Texas A&M upset #1 Stanford 63-62. I felt good about this because if I had to watch Stanford sulk around after being knocked out of the tournament by UConn for the third year in a row, I might have clawed my eyes out.
Though Stanford lost, Coach Tara VanDerveer is even more of a bawse in my mind for having the faith in her players to give Melanie Murphy significant minutes off the bench in such an important game. She was their spark plug in key moments while Kayla Pederson struggled. Nnemkadi Ogwumike carried the team with 31 points.
The second game of the night was a Big East battle between Notre Dame and UConn. Skylar Diggins led the Irish to a 72-63 victory with 28 points. This ended the Maya Moore era which is sad for UConn but great news for everyone else. There is no denying that Maya Moore was one of the best college players of all time if you couldn’t tell from the various interviews, montages, and clips of her shown before and throughout the game. Maybe ESPN knew UConn was going to lose so they had to get it all out? Anyway, she finished with 36 points and probably a bit of an attitude because the rest of her team played like they were too busy staring dreamily at Diana Taurasi in the stands. They probably were.
And speaking of things that were happening in the stands, holy bajeezus how gay did it look when the camera would show Diggins do something good then cut to Candice Wiggins celebrating in the crowd then cut back to Diggins smiling on the court? There was some story about them becoming friends during Skylar’s official visit to Stanford but that’s no fun. I like to play a game called Big Lesbian Announcer, in which I point out all the super gay things going on that they won’t talk about on TV. In last night’s game of Big Lesbian Announcer, I pretended the cuts to Wiggins were “girlfriend reaction shots.”
I had to do something to counter what was happening on Twitter. At one point Candice Wiggins, Maya Moore, Skylar Diggins, and Candace Parker were all trending at the same time and I thought, “YAY! People care about women’s sports!” But most of the tweets were from straight guys debating who was the most attractive so no feminist high fives were thrown.
If Lil’ Wayne can take time out of his day to spell the word luck wrong in a tweet to Skylar Diggins, I think you can make time for the championship. The game is Tuesday, April 5th at 8:30pm EST on ESPN. I think Notre Dame will take it but my number one feeling right now is more Sydney Colson on my TV screen.
Who do you think will win? How are you feeling about UConn and Stanford being knocked out? What was your favorite part of last night’s broadcast?
I’m supporting my Texas A&M Aggies. The last five minutes of last night’s game was stressful. A&M was down by 10 at one point and all the Stanford fans (including announcers) were cheering on Stanford. But wait. The “farmer school” from Texas came rolling back. Last night was AMAZING. If you want to watch yesterday’s games, ESPN has them on replay here: http://espn.go.com/espn3/index?id=160140
Gig ’em,
Sarah ’04
Pulling for Notre Dame. Played for a number of years with and against one of their starters, and grew up going to ND games with my Dad! I really like Texas A&M, too. It should be an awesome game.
ND-Uconn game was great… the love/obsession with Uconn and Maya Moore was annoying. Even with ND pulling it off the focus was still on MM.
It was definitely interesting to see Wiggins cheering so hard for ND, I was wondering why they stopped showing her in the 2nd half. At that point, all we saw was Taurasi being ‘drooled after’ as you say.
Like to see Notre Dame finish out their run with a 2nd National Championship.
Go Irish!
Maybe because she was getting slandered by UConn players/fans on Twitter?
So the east coast bias of ESPN combined with Twitter! Nice.
I think the obsession with Maya Moore is warranted. She’s probably the best player the NCAA has ever seen. But, even so, go Irish!
The ND UConn game was ridiculously amazing. I want Skylar Diggins to have my babies.
But seriously, it’s like UConn completely zoned out at the end. What was with that?
Anyway, I go to grad school at ND, so I have to say GO IRISH!
I actually will not even watch this game seeing as my high school’s soccer team is in the THIRD ROUND of the STATE PLAYOFFS tomorrow night and it is a home game!!!!
GO RLT LIONS.
but I love basketball and good luck Notre Dame beat the Aggies! :)
Gotta go with Texas… I can’t support a school, or athletics department that takes a very notorious stance against lgbt involvement.
I fully expect tomorrow’s game to be much more interesting than the men’s championship that was tonight. I don’t particularly like the Aggies but I will root against Notre Dame in any sport.
I’m so excited for my aggies to be playing in the championship game. It’s been a long time coming. It just figures it would happen when I’m stuck on an army base and can’t go. Story of my life. However, I will be watching on tv and I will be drooling over maryanne baker. BTHO notre dame! WHOOP!!!!
Me too. Maryann’s so cute.
I’m still stunned. It’s the UConn men, not the women, who ended up winning a national championship.
I really don’t have anything to add to this, except to say this is some gooooood writin’. and I’m glad AS writes about sports now:)
Rummy Ares