Running 2023-24 NCAA Basketball Thread

Guess I'm a sap. I love it. I smiled real big at the shot of Edey and Burns laughing it up.

 

Pretty sure CBS/Turner hold the rights to OSM, at least in a basketball context. But yeah, the women should do something. They could even be creative with it and break out of the box. But a satisfying goodbye in sports just tugs at the heartstrings. I mean, who didn’t tear up the first time they unlocked this?

 

I must admit, I never was that dialed in to what Danny Hurley, or UConn, was accomplishing until recent days. I just don't follow the one-and-done college basketball landscape of this era.

So, my opinion won't matter either.

But Hurley put himself in pretty rarefied air last night. No matter how goofy he looks on the sideline.

 

As a follower of another Big East team, it's been pretty stunning to watch. They're so disciplined and never let up. They've only lost one non- conference game in two years.

I don't like his sideline stuff or some of his other antics, but he appears to be running a clean program at a higher level than anyone else and to genuinely care about/do right by his players. It's hard not to respect.

 

I covered him briefly when he was at URI, the stop before UConn. He was pretty genuine there too. Emotional, and he's going to coach you hard. The guys that respond to it play hard as hell on both ends. I also think that he probably doesn't get enough credit for his scouting and recruiting. Every coach has "misses" on the recruiting trail, but even at URI, he found a couple All-A10 players each recruiting cycle. Doesn't take a long time to turn around a program if you're doing that.

 

Growth of women's championship game TV ratings began two years ago. I know Clark explains the skyrocketing number this year and ratings will slide back in 2025, but for now, it makes for a pretty compelling graphic.

 

There might actually be a scientific explanation for that.
In 2021, ESPN started showing all of the women's games instead of a select few. They used to do mostly whiparound coverage for the first weekend, which was both hard for fans to follow (and invest in), and provided fewer opportunities to compile viewers.
More games shown equals more total viewers, since there are more data points, right?

 

The chart in question is only viewership for the championship game.
But the larger point that coverage of the entire tourney can build greater engagement and interest for the finals seems like a good one.

 

Kim Caldwell's 40 minutes of hell will keep the viewership from falling off a cliff.

 

Wasn’t this the first year for the women’s natty on ABC? That alone probably ensures that it doesn’t fall back to where it was before.

The one thing I worry about when people project BKW to follow the growth curve of BKC from 40 years ago (I’m assuming the AP wire slugs are too obscure to have been Tweet shamed out of existence yet) is that the women’s game is speed running everything and arriving into the NIL/free transfer era with a rush. Which is great for the kids but could lead to some fans getting disillusioned in a hurry, like you are already seeing with Virginia Tech.

 

IIRC, ABC carried last year's finale. And it's been on CBS in the past, but just the final.

 

Now let’s talk about the men’s final losing about 7 million viewers on average in the last 10 years.