Maeve Bidonde, Staff Writer
March Madness has come to an end and now it’s time to go over the results of both the men’s and women’s brackets. The final four results for the women produced a championship game between South Carolina and Iowa. South Carolina secured the championship win over Iowa with a score of 87 to 75. That game also marked the end of Caitlin Clark’s collegiate basketball career.
As for the men’s bracket UConn and Purdue were the teams in their championship. Both teams had different motivations to win. UConn wanted to secure their sixth NCAA championship win, and also have back to back wins. Purdue wanted their first NCAA championship win but only one team got what they wanted. UConn beat Purdue soundly with a score of 75 to 60, thus bringing home a much needed win after the crushing defeat the UConn women’s team faced during the final four round. It was evident that UConn had a pretty solid defense with more defensive rebounds and blocks than Purdue. The UConn offense was also on top of their game with 14 offensive rebounds and a staggering 21 assists.
In the women’s championship match, Caitlin Clark and Iowa had their work cut out for them since their opponent South Carolina had an undefeated season. South Carolina was able to pull off a win and retain their undefeated season title. By winning, South Carolina added to the history books by becoming the 10th team in Division 1 basketball to have an undefeated season. They joined UConn who had six undefeated seasons, Baylor, Tennessee, and Texas. The previous season, Iowa had crushed South Carolina’s dreams of an undefeated season, meaning this championship game was also an opportunity for South Carolina to avenge their defeat from the last season. The game itself was highly anticipated and brought in 19 million viewers to view the rematch.
South Carolina wasn’t the only team to make history with a championship win. The UConn Men’s team was the first team to capture back-to-back national championship wins since 2007. UConn also joined the 2006-07 Florida Gators and the 1991-92 Duke Blue Devils as the third team to repeat wins with their sixth overall title. The UConn coach Dan Hurley did have some choice words for the referees who were not doing the jobs as well as they were being paid to do. AP News released an article mentioning that Hurley verbally accosted the refs over fouls they were failing to call. “Hurley earned every penny in this one. In the first half, he begged with, swore at and generally berated the refs about over-the-backs, elbows and hip checks that weren’t called” the coach had stated. Both games were filled with suspense and anxiety to find out who would come out on top for the 2024 March Madness brackets.
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