Running 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Thread

Easily the worst part of women’s hoops to me is the advocacy journalism chorus that makes it feel like a reading at the Feminist Bookstore from Portlandia.

 

The advent of social media-reality TV over the last 20 years or so has taught us that, regardless of gender, you can shake your ass as much as you like and anyone who doesn't like it is one of the "haterzzzzzzzzzzzzzz." So any type of valid criticism gets drowned out by "haterz gonna hate," "you da man" and "you go girl!" and no one ever has to look in a mirror.

 

Yes. The entire woman’s Final Four were well-played, entertaining games that stand on their own merit.

And even covered in mountains of ESPN hype, people who normally don’t watch women’s basketball realized that and tuned in.

It was not because women’s basketball is a social crusade. It’s because it was an entertaining sports event with some of the game’s best players.

 

I had no idea that all this time Ward and June Cleaver were "hating on the Beaver" because they tried to teach him the proper way to behave and scolded him when he made an ugly face for the 5th grade classroom yearbook picture.



Unapologetically confident little brat.

 

I think the posters who are saying that Clark had no problem with it are 100 percent correct. I'm sure she is tucking it away for any future meetings/encounters, but surely didn't faint from the audacity of the situation.

My 2 issues ...

1) Reese made several references about how she doesn't take disrespect well. When did Clark disrespect LSU, and who TF appointed her the guardian for alleged disrespect that Clark dished out to Louisville a week ago, to a player, who notably had been going back and forth with Clark that whole game? I remember HVL coming off the court when Louisville had an 8-0 lead, shouting (lip-reading): "This is my court, bitch!" Better hope Reese didn't see that, or else she may be headed to exact her revenge ...

2) Trying to imagine the roles being reversed. What do you suppose Reese's reaction would have been if Clark was stalking her in the final seconds, doing the "You can't see me" and pointing to her ring finger? The fight would still be going on.

She can behave any way she sees fit. The sports world is filled with unlikeable champions. I hated Larry Bird, Tom Brady, Bobby Knight, really dislike Nick Saban, etc., but I have some level of respect for all of them. I have zero respect for Angel Reese (I'm sure she would be devastated to hear that), but she can take her gestures, the Sharpie drawing on her ring finger, the pretend crown on her head, and get fucked by a running chainsaw.

 

I agree that women's sports has too many advocates who think we should only celebrate female athletes - but are also the type who complain that their sports aren't taken as seriously as men's sports. You get one - or the other - not both.

 

A lot of it is a matter of time. Unlike the early days of Title IX, a couple of generations have grown up with women playing games as normal, not a freak show.

 

Hey, did you guys know the men's final is tonight?

 

You hit upon a word here that I think matters: respect. Not to be old guy but there felt like there was an element of that in the trash talk of our youth. Bird and Magic talked but there was a mutual respect, same goes for Magic and Jordan and Bird and Jordan. McHale stopping and talking to Thomas and slapping five as the Celtics left the court (for their own safety, might I add) in 1988. The Bad Boys and Thomas were tarnished because they seemed to have no respect, walking off the court like petty children when Jordan and the Bulls finally took them out in 1991. Of course, Jordan badmouthed them in the days before so maybe that's where this all started.

None of what we saw yesterday seemed at all respectful. It was all, "suck it, looser!"

 

Fits in with my last post. From Tiger behaving badly to, say, Curry missing a game-winning shot at the buzzer, it's rip city (apologies to the late Bill Schonley). Remember all the fallout a few years back when some dared criticize the USWNT after a loss in the World Cup?