The annual NCAA National Championship tournament just wrapped up this week with two new winners cutting down the nets. The UConn Huskies beat San Diego State by a score of 76-59 to win the men’s tournament while LSU beat the Iowa Hawkeyes 102-85 on the women’s side. Meanwhile, UConn’s Adama Sanogo and LSU’s Angel Reese earned the Most Outstanding Player (MOP) titles.
Naturally, with more than a month of hype and games, there was a massive amount of discussion around both the men and women’s tournaments. While the competition is officially known as the National Championship, the colloquial term “March Madness” is more popular in common parlance and online. From March 1 through today, the phrase “March Madness” or the hashtag #MarchMadness have garnered more than 2.32 million mentions, while the more official hashtag #NationalChampionship only earned 127.2K mentions.
On both fronts, a majority of the sentiment was considered positive, in part due to so many people discussing great plays and some of the amazing talent on show this year, like both MOPs mentioned above as well as Iowa’s star Caitlin Clark.
However, like in most competitions, there was some debate and dissensus throughout, particularly depending on whose favorite teams were ahead at the time. For example, Iowa’s Clark taunted an opponent with a “you can’t see me” gesture earlier in the tournament, while LSU’s Reese then turned the gesture back on her during the final game, adding to it with a “talk to the ring” gesture. Online pundits immediately jumped on Reese by calling her “classless,” which in turn prompted others to respond by arguing they only have a problem with Reese making the gesture because she’s Black, while Clark is white.
https://twitter.com/OrtizKicks/status/1642648288280162305?s=20
“Angel Reese has no class. Caitlin Clark was raised right.” pic.twitter.com/sWZJVh3Sek
— KillaChem (@Flour_Ranger) April 2, 2023
Adding fuel to the fire was First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, who suggested inviting both teams rather than just the victors to visit the White House. In both professional and collegiate sports, the team who wins the national championship has traditionally visited the White House and met the president following their win. Dr. Biden’s suggestion was immediately shot down by LSU and echoes some of the concerns of racism by others, given that Iowa’s stars are predominantly white while LSU’s are Black.
https://twitter.com/Reese10Angel/status/1643024890813874179?s=20
Despite these concerns and competing opinions, the tournament did demonstrate a great step forward for women’s sports and demonstrated the market is there for women’s team brands to compete with men’s teams. ESPN’s public relations team shared some of the record-breaking statistics:
https://twitter.com/ESPNPR/status/1643634675733213191?s=20
In fact, there were not only broadcast records shattered but also many athletic records, including records broken by both Reese and Clark.
https://twitter.com/MarchMadnessWBB/status/1643329141826277379?s=20
A positive and charming storyline to come out of the tournament was that a pair of cousins won their respective championships. Reese and her cousin Jordan Hawkins, who plays for UConn, each took home a trophy. Sounds like they’re already planning quite the celebration back home!
https://twitter.com/MarchMadnessMBB/status/1643095650848866309?s=20
https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1641887350149074953?s=20
Congratulations to the UConn Huskies and LSU Tigers on their championship wins!
Author: Kayleigh Jackson
