MARCH MADNESS IS ABOUT THE WOMEN, AS DUMB GAMBLERS SPEND ON MALE YAWNS
A transformation is upon us, with one March day indicating what’s next in the NCAA tournaments — disorder in a South Carolina-LSU rumble while Caitlin rambles on, as troubled young men bet on boredom
When a fool with a backwards cap jumped onto a scorer’s table, raced onto the court and was chased by policemen in Greenville, S.C., well, it just confirmed what we already knew. In college basketball, women are a better spectacle. They have hijacked men from the heights of March Madness, and before you attribute that to Caitlin Clark, consider what happened late in South Carolina’s victory over LSU.
The dude is the brother of LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson, who had just mistreated the enemy’s MiLaysia Fulwiley on a steal and was called for an intentional foul. Johnson then screamed hellishness at Ashlyn Watkins and was waylaid by Kamilla Cardoso, who used her 6-7 brawn and pushed Johnson to the floor. The cops apprehended her brother on the sideline after he made contact with Cardoso. Six players were ejected from the SEC championship game, and Cardoso, according to rules, is subject to a first-round suspension in the NCAA tournament for a team that won it all in 2022.
And through it all, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley was lambasting the LSU bench after winning the school’s 16th straight game in the rivalry. And losing coach Kim Mulkey, who won a national title last year in her usual flamboyant outfits, was asking Cardoso to shove Angel Reese, who last was seen mocking Clark with a “you can’t see me” gesture. “It's ugly, it's not good, no one wants to be a part of that. But I'll tell you this, I wish (Cardoso) would've pushed Angel Reese,” Mulkey said. “Don’t push a kid when you're 6-7. Don't push somebody that little. That was uncalled for in my opinion. Let those two girls who were jawing, let them go at it.”
She wasn’t finished. “Do you realize there was only one foul called on each team with two minutes left in the fourth quarter? Are you kidding me? That might have created some of that,” Mulkey said. “Not the way we play. We’re going to foul your ass. They’re going to foul your ass. You only blew the whistle one time? Flau’jae, what I saw, intentionally fouled Fulwiley because she stripped her. Then some jawing went on with her and another player, and the next thing I know Cardoso just waylaid her. So I ran because somebody came out of the stands — I think it was Flau’jae’s brother — trying to keep him from doing anything crazy.”
Should Mulkey be in the cop shop, too?
The thrill of March has rerouted my eyes through smoke and confetti, to the fire and charm of the women. The men? Who cares amid the landmark transformation? Dan Hurley is trying to go back-to-back at Connecticut when no one knows if he’s actually Bobby. Zach Edey is 7-4 and 300 pounds and aches to win for Purdue and his native Canada. Kelvin Sampson, finally past his impermissible phone calls at Indiana many years ago, senses a national title before him in Texas. “There’s so many people that have an inferior complex about … we’re the University of Houston,” he said after winning the Big 12’s regular season. “This is a damn good school. We live in a damn good city, and we’re a damn good basketball program. We should never ever, ever, ever take a backseat to anybody.”
He is taking a backseat to the women’s event, with the finals in a Cleveland arena the day before the men’s title game inside an Arizona football field. Whether it’s the Gamecocks, the Tigers or Caitlin, the women will mesmerize us while the men sort of play along for a preposterous $1.1 billion a year through 2032. We watch Clark, inevitably, because she wins even when she doesn’t perform well, missing 17 of 22 three-pointers and committing seven turnovers. She wakes up in daylight saving time and still manages to score 34. How else would she spend a March Sunday than by hoisting another Big Ten banner for Iowa?
“I just think this team is never out of a game. We have the offensive firepower to be in any game, and we all believed that, we all knew that and we never gave up,” Clark said. “When you get into the groove and into the game, those bad thoughts don't even cross your mind. You're just there. You're playing. You trust one another. It never gets old cutting the net. I feel like we’re pretty good at that.”
We thank her for so many reasons. One, Clark wants nothing more than to win a national title and scurry into the WNBA with the greatest revolutionary push in her sport’s history. Two, a jumper that has failed her lately hasn’t stopped her from leading her team in crunch time.
And most importantly, she has no reason to throw a game.
I cannot say the same for the men’s game, another reason I’m down on it. Days before the tournament begins, gambling investigations have impacted programs at Temple and Loyola of Maryland. If we think the integrity fires end there, DraftKings should put all doubters in a gonzo commercial with Kevin Hart. If I am terminally concerned about betting’s impact on sports — and why people lay money on spreads, props and outcomes detached from who wins or loses the damned game — the worst ravages are on wagerers between 25 and 34. Young men are the most vulnerable gamblers and, in particular, they bet on college basketball in March. They are not betting on Caitlin or the Gamecocks, at this point, but give them time.
They watch the ads from ESPN and the sportsbook industry and blow out online bills. Before you know it, many have lost loan money and family inheritances. Soon enough, they lose their marriages, their families and control of their lives. The dice rolls start in their mid-teens, with the National Council on Problem Gambling saying 60 to 80 percent of high school kids have gambled in the last year. All of which has happened since the Supreme Court, which ignored these issues, opened the walls for legalized sports betting six years ago.
Also in the crazy mix are players. The vast majority will move into their lives after college, giving them a chance to associate with gamblers for fixes if they choose. Temple? The school of John Chaney is being investigated by watchdog company U.S. Integrity. See, the more bettors mean there are more chances to throw games. When NBA center Rudy Gobert was fined $100,000 for flashing a money sign at an official, he wasn’t doing it for fun. Referees, too, are suspect in the newfangled game. “I’ll bite the bullet again,” Gobert said Friday night. “I’ll be the bad guy. I'll take the fine, but I think it's hurting our game. I know the betting and all that is becoming bigger and bigger, but it shouldn't feel that way.”
The NCAA is viewed as burned toast in administering college sports, and it will be finished in due time. Focus on New Hampshire, where a unionized Dartmouth team might help determine whether athletes are employees of universities. For now, the governing body still runs the tournaments, even as men’s brackets are increased from the perfect 68 to an unnecessary 72 or 76. The fat payments will continue for years, as they will from ESPN, which is paying $65 million a season for the women’s hoops tournament in an eight-year, $920 million deal. Problem is, the men’s version no longer has future greats of the game.
In one mock draft, the first five picks this June will be Alexandre Sarr, a 7-1 big man who plays in France; Zaccharie Risacher, a small forward who plays in France; Nikola Topic, a point guard who plays in Serbia; Ron Holland, a guard who plays with the G League Ignite; and Matas Buzelis, a Lithuanian who also plays for Ignite. Not until you reach the bottom of the top 10 do you see a Madness player, guard Reed Sheppard of Kentucky.
Not that the gambling kids care. They’re betting teams, trends, gossip, whatever the clowns say on hypocritical shows funded by DraftKings and FanDuel — such as one hosted by Dan Le Batard, who gave up journalism to do gambling junk. Those shows don’t concern themselves with Clark. Why would they?
It’s only the best material of spring. They can yap about Edey and Hurley and Sampson. I will yawn.
My eyes will be on the women. And Flau’jae’s brother.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.