March Madness: Meet the female Basketball players making their mark

Kim Kardashian is stepping out to support her son.

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship delivered a bigger audience than last year, but it wasn’t enough to best the women’s title game.

It was supposed to be the battle of the big men as UConn’s 7-2, 280-pound center Donovan Clingan took on Purdue’s 7-foot-4, 300-pound Zach Edey, but the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship didn’t turn out that way. It was Huskies’ guard Tristan Newton who led his team with 20 points and 7 assists, and in so doing earned Most Outstanding Player honors for the Final Four for a second year in a row.

South Carolina defeated Iowa in front of a record-breaking national audience on Sunday.

Maybe a star player will be singled out with a “thank you for making us better,” or some other sportsmanlike platitude.However, when Dawn Staley, head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks, took the podium on Sunday, April 7, following her team’s big win, she went out of her way to dedicate an entire paragraph of her speech to , the college basketball star for the Iowa Hawkeyes.“I want to personally thank Caitlin Clark for lifting up our sport,” Staley . “She carried a heavy load for and it’s just not going to stop here on the collegiate tour, but when she is the number one pick in the draft, she’s going to lift up that league up as well.”She added, “Caitlin Clark, if you’re out there, you are one of the GOATs of our game and we appreciate you.”Head coach Dawn Staley of the South Carolina Gamecocks celebrates after beating the Iowa Hawkeyes in the 2024 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament National Championship.Staley’s decision to call Clark a GOAT seems pointed, especially after some fans believed the South Carolina coach in a previous interview.“If Caitlin wins the championship, she’s pretty damn good, yeah, she’s a GOAT,” Staley said the day before the final game, .

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The NCAA men’s basketball national championship game is finally here, capping off an action-packed March Madness season. No.

It was perfection topped with sweet revenge for the South Carolina Gamecocks, who capped a perfect season Sunday by beating Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes, 87-75.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor The University of South Carolina overwhelmed the Iowa Hawkeyes Sunday in a rollicking NCAA Women’s College Basketball Championship game that capped an unprecedented run for women’s sports. The game that ended 87-75 saw University of Iowa megastar Caitlin Clark wrap her collegiate career and the birth of not one but two WNBA stars, as Clark and South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso head off to next week’s WNBA draft. The Iowa-South Carolina game was a seesaw from the start.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Caitlin Clark and Co. delivered big-time for ESPN on Friday with a record audience tuning in to the Final Four game that sent the University of Iowa to Sunday’s national championship. ESPN’s nighttime telecast of UConn-Iowa faceoff delivered an audience of 14.2 million viewers, a new high mark for a women’s college basketball game, per ESPN citing Nielsen data.

Thee women’s NCAA Semifinals on ESPN shattered viewership records, as all-time NCAA basketball scoring leader Caitlin Clark led her Iowa Hawkeyes to a thrilling win over the UConn Huskies, 71-69, in a game that wasn’t decided until the final seconds.

—and the pressure is mounting.The led the Iowa Hawkeyes to victory against UConn on April 5, sending the college team to the women’s NCAA championship game against the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks.Just last week, Iowa's win against Louisiana State University became the in women’s college history, with 12.3 million viewers tuning in to see the epic rematch between Clark and fellow generational talent . While Clark has yet to win a national title, the superstar recently became the the all-time , male or female.

A battle for the ages is shaping up on Sunday to decide the NCAA Women’s National Basketball championship.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor The University of Iowa and superstar Caitlin Clark are set for consecutive trips to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship Game as the team prevailed in a nail-biter Final Four faceoff against University of Connecticut. The final matchup finishes out a dream March Madness tournament for NCAA Women’s Basketball, as star players such as Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese and others have grabbed the spotlight.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The outsized audience for this week’s highly-watched women’s NCAA basketball match between Iowa and LSU may also have noticed that many of the commercials seen during the game belonged to AT&T, State Farm, Home Depot and Gatorade. There was good reason. Optimum Sports, a media agency that specializes in sports properties and is part of ad giant Omnicom Group, had quietly snatched up 35% of advertising time during the game, a record setter in terms of viewership for women’s sports and the latest example of how interest in female players and the leagues in which they play is booming.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Does the sports world have room for April Action after weeks of March Madness? Fox aims to answer the question in 2025 when it launched a new post-season college-basketball tournament in tandem with large sports and music promote AEG Worldwide. The College Basketball Crown will rely on 16 teams drawn largely from the Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East conferences, with the possibility of other participants.

Once again, the Iowa Hawkeyes are leading ESPN to record audiences for women’s basketball.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor No matter who prevails next Sunday at the NCAA’s championship game, 2024’s March Madness will go down in history as a milestone moment for women’s sports. Not just in the college basketball realm — but for female athletes overall. In a perfect storm, the annual bracket-bonkers frenzy around the NCAA college basketball tournament has conferred a level of respect to the women’s game that is rarely been seen across sports media, but for the quadrennial exception of the Women’s World Cup.

ESPN’s list of top 25 players to watch in the NCAA Women’s Tournament are two outstanding Latinas that are aiding in the successful post seasons during 2024 March Madness.With Caitlin Clark (Iowa) and Paige “Buckets” Bueckers (UCONN) and topping the charts on the #1 and #2 players to watch in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, the list hosts two Latinas as well, freshman Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame) and senior Kamilla Cardoso (South Carolina). Bueckers has suffered multiple injuries throughout her college career, but as Dawn Staley recently said, “Paige is great.

Wait… did Kylie Jenner break up with Timothée Chalamet — and move on with a college basketball star?!

Kim Kardashian is stepping out to cheer on her son Saint!