March Madness this year has been a bit of a bust. Aside from a couple of buzzer-beaters and Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield, for me, a casual college basketball fan, it’s sucked. Most games have been marred by physical play, inconsistent refereeing, and poor shooting. The closest thing to a Cinderella in the Final Four is a middling Syracuse team coming off of an ugly postseason suspension that caught some breaks with a soft draw. With the NBA featuring arguably the best array of talent in the league’s history, it’s been particularly though to muddle through a mediocre batch of college basketball madness.
Men’s college basketball that is. Because I’ve been watching the shit out of the Washington Huskies women as they’ve charged their way into the Final Four, and it’s been awesome. This is the first Final Four for Washington, and they’ve done it as a dominant underdog, beating the hell out of teams despite entering the tournament as a seven-seed.
At the forefront of their attack is all-time Huskies leading scorer Kelsey Plum, a dominant slashing point guard playing at the top of her game. She’s dominating games like would-be Sonics point guard Russell Westbrook, dishing out over 7 assists a game while getting to the hoop with ease over and over again. Plum was just named a third-team All American, the first Washington Huskies woman to win that honor.
Plum isn’t the team’s only star. Chantel Osahor is shooting set-shots like Bill Bradley and rebounding like Dennis Rodman, functioning like the team’s Draymond Green, stretching defenses, then picking them apart with her passing. Senior forward Talia Walton complements with athleticism inside. These three players complement each other really well, and while the Huskies aren’t deep, in the NCAA Tournament format they have enough time off to use a shallow bench.
This is all to say that despite coming into the tournament as a seven-seed, this could well be the best Washington women’s basketball team in school history. And with a Final Four matchup against an overachieving Syracuse team, Washington has a great chance at making an NCAA Final. Which is super fucking cool.
Unfortunately for Washington, they are not the best Huskies left in this tournament. On the other side of the bracket loom the Connecticut Huskies. They have won 73 straight games, all by double digits. And while Kelsey Plum is great, Breanna Stewart is perhaps the best women’s college player of all time, and her team is garnering headlines like, “the UConn women are too dominant for their own good.” While that line of thinking is idiotic (imagine a writer saying something like that about a men’s team on a run like theirs) the Huskies present a challenge for the Washington Huskies that is about as steep as any sports team can face.
That said, fuck it. Why not? WHY NOT? Who’s to say the impossible can’t be possible? I mean, I watched a terrible movie where Batman would have beaten Superman if their mother hadn’t had the same name. Who is to say that the weaker of two women’s basketball teams with the same couldn’t beat the stronger one? WHO? YOU? WELL DON’T SAY IT. STOP SAYING IT. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!