While you were sitting around waiting to watch the Superbowl on Sunday, you may have had the chance to watch a pretty interesting game between Iowa and Nebraska. Before I get to that, I'm going to talk about my niece though.
She had one of the last basketball games of her regular season last night. They were playing a makeup game against a team that is currently ranked #1 in the State of Ohio in their division. The other team had a young lady on their roster who is considered one of the best high school players in the country right now.
My nieces team lost, but they made it a really close game. Much closer than the final score would lead you to believe. In fact, before they went into halftime, my nieces team was actually ahead in the game.
I'm not going to point fingers, but there are a couple players on my nieces team who tend to be a bit selfish. On top of that, their coach does some odd rotation things, that I really think works to their detriment. My niece was doing a really good job of defending and shutting down their star player, but he would pull her after a couple minutes and then put her back in with only 30 seconds left in the quarter. It was beyond understanding.
Over the years, her love for basketball has started to fade in favor of softball which is what she plans on playing at the college level, so she handles all the ridiculousness well. I am proud of her for that.
Anyway, back over to women's college basketball.
If you aren't familiar with the Iowa women's team, they are ranked #2 in the nation right now. They have a star player named Caitlin Clark who is in contention to be the all time scoring leader in women's basketball. She has various NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deals and is kind of the face of women's college basketball right now.
If you've seen the State Farm commercial with the female basketball player, then you have seen Caitlin Clark. As I said, she is close to beating the all time scoring record, the only problem is they were on the road in Nebraska.
After taking a commanding lead over the Cornhuskers and with only 8 points left to beat the record, Caitlin basically checked out. She stayed on the perimeter and threw the ball in to other players. The few shots she did take from beyond the arc either didn't fall or were met with disdain from her coach.
Meanwhile, Nebraska continued to score, and score, and score. Before you know it, we have a close basketball game. Then Nebraska pulls ahead. Finally, Nebraska just upset the #2 team in the country.
It was pretty epic, and totally avoidable.
I understand the desire to celebrate Clarks accomplishment on her home floor. There's a good chance I will watch the game on Thursday night to see her break the record, but there are more players on the team than just Clark and you did them all a disservice by giving up the win.
It will be interesting to see how far Iowa falls in the rankings after that loss.
The fact that Clark didn't score a single point in the fourth quarter is very telling. She's Caitlin Clark, it's not that she couldn't have, it's just that she didn't.
I don't mean to discount the effort put forth by Nebraska. They have a young lady from Australia on their team who had a fantastic game, but when Clark had already put up 32 points in the game and she only needed 8 more to go, there's definitely some manipulation going on there.
Maybe not egregious enough to trigger an investigation, but there was manipulation all the same. Why not just sit Clark at that point. At least give the rest of the team a fighting chance.
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