“Like a fish needs a bicycle, a woman needs a man.” – “Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World” by U2
That line from the U2 song kept coming to mind as I kept watching the Sue Bird-led, Diana Taurasi-led replay of last Friday’s NCAA women’s nal baskationetball semifinal between UConn and Iowa.
True, I’ve been a big fan of the band for a long time and I was fortunate enough to see them perform that song in the Las Vegas Sphere in December, but there was something about that sentence that stuck in my mind as I watched these women play the hell out of that basketball game.
For the first time in history, more people watched that game (14.2 million) than the men. It was even more pronounced for the final (24.1 million at one point!) America preferred to witness a slender, rather intense firebrand of a long-range bomber from the cornfields of Iowa dueling a sleek, steely-eyed hoop assassin from frosty Minnesota in scenic Cleveland than a succession of future NBA stars pounding the hardwood out in sunny Arizona. Really?
Prior to this basketball season, Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers may have been somewhat well-known, but they have since gone viral. Thankfully, so has the women’s basketball match.
There’s no way Dr. James Naismith could have predicted this when he hung up that first peach basket in a gym one winter in Springfield, Massachusetts. Both the men’s and women’s championship games were thrilling, if not as intensely competitive as the UConn vs. Iowa, or Caitlin vs. Paige matchup. However, there were a few moments off the court that suggested something more, a hint of grace and maturity, a vision of sport that went beyond a ball bouncing on a hardwood floor.
Leave a Reply