Choose South Carolina
Today isn't any normal Sunday. Forget your sleepy-day routine and definitely let go of the Sunday scaries because today is all about one thing: Who do you think will win?
Selection Sunday is a special, even sacred, day for college basketball fans across America. This evening, the brackets for the NCAA men's and women's tournaments will be revealed, paving the way for the sport's biggest annual competition. The road to victory will be a hectic, some may say mad, journey. And it could also be a historic one for female athletes during women's history month!
👋 Nicole Fallert here and welcome to Your Week, our newsletter exclusively for Paste BN subscribers (that's you!). This week, we talk with Paste BN Sports Reporter Lindsay Schnell about her reporting on this year's NCAA women's tournament − why the women's game is finally getting the celebrity it deserves and the coaches at the highest echelons of the sport.
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Why the NCAA women's tournament is getting madder and madder
There's a particular name you may have heard ahead of this year's tournament more than others: Caitlin Clark.
The Iowa Hawkeyes guard has been at the top of the women's college game this year. She destroyed Kelsey Plum’s NCAA women’s scoring record. Then she bettered Lynette Woodard’s all-time women’s record, passed Pete Maravich to become college basketball’s all-time leading scorer, and celebrated her Senior Day, having announced three days earlier that she would forgo a fifth year at Iowa and go pro.
Clark − with other stars, such as LSU's Angel Reese, former South Carolina star Aliyah Boston and Stanford's Cameron Brink − have helped elevate the profile of women's basketball. Viewership numbers for the women's game are at all-time highs as fans clamor to see history's best female players take the court. This sets a markedly different tone than previous NCAA tournaments, Paste BN's Lindsay Schnell said. She has clocked hours reporting on the regular season and will be Paste BN's go-to journalist to make sense of the madness during the women's tournament.
"There’s more parity than ever before in women’s basketball ... and more star power," Schnell said. "Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese specifically have brought so many casual fans to the game, and as a result, fans are falling in love with women’s basketball and tuning in to all sorts of games. For the first year ever, there’s way more excitement around the women’s tournament than the men’s tournament, and I view that as major progress."
She's curious to see how some talented first-year players handle their first March Madness, including JuJu Watkins (USC), Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame), Madison Booker (Texas) and Milaysia Fulwiley (South Carolina). These players are "human highlight reels," Schnell said. But with heightened competition on the court will come more upsets than ever, she predicted. The hungrier, lower-ranked teams will need to prove themselves early in the tournament. Not to mention tensions have already garnered some penalties heading into the competition and players are likely to keep the heat turned all the way up, she said.
And then there's the powerhouse coaches behind the players. Schnell analyzed compensation for Division I women’s basketball head coaches for an exclusive Paste BN report. Her reporting found 18 coaches are making more than $1 million a year, a jump from 11 last year (and some feel that's still not enough). As the position of women in basketball grows, Schnell said she remembers timeless journalistic advice: Follow the money.
"We’ve done the men’s salary analysis for years, and this is only the second time we’ve examined women’s coaches’ salaries," Schnell said. "That LSU has just flooded money into women's basketball since Kim Mulkey took over is really interesting to me ... and given the return they’re getting on that investment, I suspect we’ll see more schools spending serious money on women’s basketball soon."
We haven't forgotten about the men: Here are brackets, tournaments, and the latest scores ahead of Selection Sunday
Who are Schnell's picks for the women's bracket? It's hard to pick any team but South Carolina, she said: "The Gamecocks are undefeated for a reason, and every time they’ve been challenged, they’ve responded." Another contender she'll be looking out for is University of Southern California, which she says is "talented (and athletic) enough to play for a national title, no question."
Want in on the competition?! Join Paste BN's bracket challenge. Or join our Survivor Pool to play both tournaments for a chance to win $2,500. You can follow Lindsay on X for real-time updates on the women's tournament and click here for all the info about women's Selection Sunday. And don't worry, Paste BN is here for every moment of the men's tournament, too. Click here to get details on the men's bracket.
Thank you
I'll be spending today fine-tuning my women's bracket (maybe THIS will be my year!!). I'm so excited that Paste BN will be courtside in the following weeks to make sure no detail of the games is missing. We couldn't do that work without you. Thanks for your continued support of our newsroom.
Best wishes,
Nicole Fallert