Running 2023-24 NCAA Basketball Thread

Recall also that the NCAA had to find UConn a different hotel for last year’s West Regional when their rooms at the Luxor were trashed.

 

Yeah, how hard could it possibly be to fly an entire basketball team and the staff from Connecticut to Phoenix the week of the Final Four?

 

As good as Reese is, the WNBA has too many good players, with too few roster spots available, to do anything but, you know, be really good.

Won't be easy, either. Reese herself knew it when she transferred from Maryland to LSU

https://justwomenssports.com/reads/angel-reese-lsu-basketball-maryland-transfer-kim-mulkey/

For Reese, doing what was best for her meant looking for a different opportunity that would help her grow as a player, with her sights set on the WNBA.

“I wanted more for myself,” she says. “I knew that I wanted to develop into that stretch-four player, so being able to do that and play under a coach that could help me get to that level — because I know I’m not gonna play the five at the next level. I know I’m not gonna be sitting down in the post. I mean, there are way bigger players than me in the WNBA, so I know that I would have to play that stretch-four position.”

Reese is 6-3, and she is not really a stretch four. On offense, anyway. (On defense she is.) She made 2 3s in her career. Her range is about 12 feet. In the WNBA, if she's a post on offense, she's going to go against a 6-6, 6-7 center every night. Like South Carolina or UCLA's center.

So I don't think there's going to be a lot of energy spent on anything other than being as good as possible.

 

The Megill brothers in MLB have an absolutely stunning Mom. If she's not younger than me, we were definitely in high school at the same time (not together, cause if we were I totally would have married her booyah).

 

To update a classic tail-wags-dog OU quote:

"We want a university our athletic department's entertainment district can be proud of."

 

A mock draft from a little while back has her projected as the No. 7 pick.

 

The list of players I don't care much for because of their antics is exhaustively long and predates Angel Reese by a half-century.

 

The highest paid WNBA player makes $252k - the highest ever. Yes there are two or three other leagues around the globe that will help you supplement your income, during the off-season - but you'll be lucky to make $1k a week.

I imagine many college players will be shocked when they realize none of their NIL partners is interested in continuing their relationship with the player once they leave school.

 

I keep seeing people repeat stuff like this -- it's not true. Angel Reese does not magically lose all of her endorsements upon leaving college. PlayStation, Amazon and Coach are not using her to get at that lucrative Baton Rouge market.

Sabrina Ionescu has a $24 million signature shoe deal with Nike and endorsements with AT&T, Body Armor, XBox and State Farm.

Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are not exactly taking vows of poverty by turning pro.

 

Obviously, there are outside deals for the top players - but a lot of women players end up giving up the game because they find other employment that pays them more than they would playing.

 

As George Clooney’s character in “Up in the Air” opined, “The place is a shithole; nobody stays there.”

 

And the WNBA will add just one team next summer, in San Francisco.