Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
LeBron James certainly understands how star power can attract fans to basketball, and he recognized the headline names in women's college basketball this season have helped the sport explode in popularity.
"I don't think there's much difference between the men's and women's game when it comes to college basketball," he said after helping lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a win over the Washington Wizards on Wednesday, per ESPN's Dave McMenamin.
"I think the popularity comes in with the icons that they have in the women's game. You look at Angel Reese, you look at JuJu [Watkins], you look at Caitlin Clark, you look at Paige [Bueckers]. You look at the young girl that's at Iowa State, the freshman there [Audi Crooks]. You look at [Cameron] Brink ... at Stanford. And that's just to name a few. And the freshman that's at Notre Dame [Hannah Hidalgo]. Because they're not allowed to go to the NBA [after their freshman year]."
One of the biggest differences between the men's and women's game is the rules dictating when the players can turn to the professional ranks.
Men's players must complete a year of college or be at least 19 years old to enter the NBA, while women's players who are in college must be at least 22 years old in the calendar year of the draft to enter the WNBA. International players must be at least 20.
That allows fans to watch the same players for years as they develop from freshmen into the faces of their respective programs.
That, of course, limits individual freedoms that are available to the star players on the men's side. James, for example, went straight to the NBA from high school and didn't even play at the collegiate level before the current rules were in place.
"It's just a different time between the men's and women's," James said. "And men can come out after their freshman year. If I have a big-ass season after my freshman year of college basketball, I'm going to the league. If a girl has a great season—like JuJu. JuJu, she can't come out. If she could, you think she might. Maybe. But that's the difference."
Watkins was dominant during her first season at USC and set the Division I women's college basketball record for total points.
In all, she averaged 27.1 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.3 steals per game and led the Trojans to the Elite Eight before falling to another star in Bueckers and UConn. It was USC's first Elite Eight appearance since the 1993-94 campaign.
Yet the biggest star in all of college basketball this season was Clark, who earned some revenge against Reese and LSU by leading Iowa to an Elite Eight win in the national title game rematch. All Clark did was drop 41 points, 12 assists, seven rebounds and two steals behind nine made three-pointers, further cementing her legacy after becoming the NCAA Division I all-time leading scorer earlier this year by passing Pete Maravich.
McMenamin noted the Elite Eight game featuring Clark and Reese drew an average of 12.3 million viewers, which surpassed every game in this year's men's tournament except for the Elite Eight matchup between Duke and North Carolina State.
Friday's Final Four showdown between Clark and Bueckers may draw even more than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment