LSU Wins First NCAA Championship; UConn continues dominance in March Madness
April 13, 2023
Last week, LSU earned their first win in NCAA championship history. The coach, Kim Mulkey, is in her second year with the team. Despite the challenges along the way, she was able to lead her team to the championship.
In the end, the final score was 102-85 on Sunday, April 2nd. It was the first win in the schools’ history for both Women and Men’s basketball.
The Tigers used a record performance to beat Catlin Clark and Iowa. The win made Mulkey the first coach ever in the women’s national championship game to win at two different schools. Mulkey had previously won three championships at Baylor but then decided to start coaching at LSU two years ago.
Mulkey has said that it is a blessing to win on four separate occasions. Never in the Women’s and Men’s LSU history has a championship been won at the school. Every time that she has been to the national championship, she has emerged victorious.
The women’s title game set a new record with 9.9 million viewers on ABC News and on ESPN2. That was a 103% increase over the last year, when South Carolina defeated UConn, when the network had an average of 4.85 million people watching.
In addition, on Monday, April 3rd it was a familiar face-off winning the men’s championship round. The UConn Huskies won their fifth national championship. UConn, a No. 4 seed, beat No. 5 seed San Diego State 76-59.
In summary, UConn won their fifth title in the past 24 years. Each time that the Huskies played, they cruised through the tournament, led by their head coach Dan Hurley. For the record, The Huskies won all six games by at least 10 points.
For San Diego State, this was their first time making it to the title game. The Aztecs did not go quietly because late in the second half, they cut the lead down to six points.
Ultimately, the effort was not good enough because the Huskies used one more good run to secure their win.
Sources used in article:
https://www.westernmassnews.com/2023/04/04/uconn-wins-march-madness-with-76-59-smothering-sdsu/
https://www.westernmassnews.com/2023/04/04/sundays-ncaa-womens-title-game-draws-record-tv-audience/
