Not To Be Sexist, But Women's College Basketball ... You've Come A Long Way, Baby

Happy Monday, and welcome to perhaps the greatest night in women's college basketball history.

Of course, it could be passed next week in the national championship game, but one game at a time, please.

Defending national champion LSU (31-5) and coach Kim "Cruella" Mulkey play No. 1 seed Iowa (32-4) and fairy goddess point guard princess Caitlin Clark tonight in an NCAA Regional championship game in Albany, New York. This will be in prime time (7:15 p.m., ESPN). This could be watched by more than some Monday Night Football games as it could surpass 10 million viewers.

LSU coach Kim Mulkey and her charged personality have been key parts in the meteoric rise of women's college basketball over the last year. (Getty Images)

The winner goes to the Final Four in Cleveland that starts Friday. These two teams met last April 2 in Dallas for the national title. LSU won, 102-85, but it still drew an NCAA women's record viewership of 9.2 million. It would be remarkable, but not impossible, for that to be surpassed tonight, even though it's not a Final Four pairing. For some, this has been billed as a match-up of Good vs. Evil. It's not really, but close enough.

RELATED: Kim Mulkey Accuses L.A. Times Of Sexism

Will Mulkey, who's really a good person and doesn't drink, but seemingly loves playing the villain and would like to boil most media in huge cauldrons, cast another spell against Clark and her wholesome Hawkeye teammates and send them all back to Iowa in a pumpkin?

Iowa’s Caitlin Clark has almost single-handedly made women's college basketball must-see TV. (Getty Images)

Or will the angelic Caitlin, aka "Ponytail Pete," who represents all that is good but does drink wine and whines a lot to officials, teammates and coaches, remind the LSU Nation just how good its own Pistol Pete Maravich was by scoring 44 with 14 assists and a logo 3 to win it at the buzzer? 

Then she could walk off the court and NOT put her ring finger in the face of Mean Girl Angel Reese, who did that as last year's game ended and lingered.

LSU's Angel Reese got in Caitlin Clark's face to show her where her national championship ring will go after LSU beat Iowa in the 2023 national title game. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

Actually, Reese is a nice girl - she just likes to play that street-cred bad girl for fun. But she really is bad ass on the court. Yes, she plays rough, but so do a lot of men's players. So, forget about it.

No. 1 And 36-0 South Carolina Awaits

Either way, one of these teams will then likely play the baddest team in all the land - No. 1 seed South Carolina (36-0) - on Sunday for the national title. That is if South Carolina and coach Dawn Staley, who used to be Cruella until Mulkey took that away, wins Friday at the Final Four against either USC or Connecticut. No. 1 seed USC (29-5) plays No. 3 seed UConn (32-5) in the late game tonight (9:20 p.m., ESPN).

Stay up for that one. USC freshman JuJu Watkins could be the next Caitlin Clark, and UConn junior Paige Bueckers was the consensus national player of the year as a freshman in 2021 before various injuries slowed her until this season. She's back.

Wait, there's more. South Carolina would be 73-0 right now if not for Iowa beating it, 77-73, last year in a national semifinal as Clark scored 41 to ignite this explosion of the women's game. A South Carolina-Iowa rematch on Sunday for the national title could one up tonight's LSU-Iowa clash.

RELATED: LSU Won The Fight, But South Carolina Won The Game

A South Carolina-LSU rematch on Sunday would, too. Either way, the women's Final Four will likely be more interesting than the men's for the second straight year. And for the second consecutive year, men will be watching and discussing the women's Final Four as much or more than the men's version.

Did men suddenly become less sexist? No, the women's game just got better. Where did all this come from? Not long ago, women's basketball was seen as cute, but not taken seriously.

Women's Game Just Got Better

Back in the day, one could go to a women's game, and a political, LGBT convention broke out instead.

"It's not the game that's hard to stomach," Washington Times columnist Tom Knott wrote on April 3, 1994 - the morning of the women's title game in which North Carolina beat Louisiana Tech and a rising assistant named Kim Mulkey on a 3-pointer with 0.1 seconds left by Charlotte Smith.

"It's the socialists," Knott wrote. "The gender-equity hue is just a politically correct form of socialism. The gender-equity debate is symptomatic of another problem. The whiners never figured out how to market their game. It's as if they invite a comparison to the men's game, although that does them no good."

The games are marketed better now by more exposure on television and somewhat inadvertently by lightning rod-candid coaches such as Mulkey, South Carolina's Dawn Staley, UConn's Geno Auriemma and Stanford's Tara VanDerveer. 

Mulkey can sure talk, but she can also coach and strategize as well as any man. And who knows what Staley may do or say? She may be growing tired of being upstaged by Mulkey. She's got a controversial game, too. Coaches of the men's game tend to be more polished and careful. 

"The coaches in the women's game say what's on their mind more than in the men's game," New York Times sports writer Jere' Longman, who has covered women's basketball since the 1970s, told OutKick. "You're not going to find any better coaches to talk to than Geno Auriemma at UConn or Tara VanDerveer at Stanford. Or Kim Mulkey - they all say what they think."

What some see as bad can be good.

"The old saying, ‘Any exposure is good exposure’ applies," ESPN's Michael Voepel, who has covered women's basketball since the 1980s, said to OutKick. "The controversy with Angel and Caitlin after last year's title game was actually good for the game because people were talking about it because they cared about it. And men have started to just look at women's players as athletes. That's the way. That's big progress. If they don't like Caitlin or Angel, it's for reasons other than the fact that they're women." 

Somehow, over the past two years, the women put all the Title IX and political movements and some of the whining about the men's game getting more exposure and money on the back burner. And they just started playing better basketball. Clark is clearly the reason for the women's explosion as she broke a Pete Maravich record that many thought would never fall. But there are other great players.

Iowa superstar guard Caitlin Clark has become a folk hero over the last year. (Getty Images)

It's not about sexism. Men, who watch most of the sports in this country, are watching the women's game more because it's entertaining. 

"I believe that when you actually give women a format and give them the opportunity to be seen, people will realize it’s a great game," DePaul women's coach Doug Bruno told OutKick. Bruno, 73, has coached basketball for 50 years, including the DePaul women since 1988 after coaching men at Loyola of Chicago from 1980-88. He helped develop LSU star Aneesah Morrow, who became an All-American at DePaul before transferring.

"Yes, you have the Caitlin Clark factor," Bruno said. "But you also have the South Carolina factor. I think women getting the opportunity to be seen is really what’s created this interest."

The product is sometimes better than on the men's side, and often just as good.

"Caitlin has a personality, and she plays with a kind of audacity - shooting from the logos and the long passes - that draws people to watch," Longman said. "She's the Taylor Swift of basketball. Caitlin is sort of a harmonic convergence of skill, staying for four years, more television and more social media and publicity through NIL (Name, Image & Likeness)."

Reese, too, has the "It" factor and all that hair.

Angel Reese wearing a Tiarra is the perfect look for her.  (Getty Images)

"Angel has such a personality," Voepel said. "She's fun to watch. She's who she is, and she's pretty unapologetic about that, whether she's the good or bad girl, according to your narrative. That's kind of what makes sports go."

So does gambling.

"Betting is a part of it," Voepel said. "And that's great, because all of a sudden it's not, ‘Oh, it’s a women's game.' If you're betting, I don't think it matters if it's men or women."

What Caitlin Clark And Steph Curry Have In Common

But the main reason for Clark's appeal and the appeal of the entire game is how she plays. 

"Caitlin Clark and Steph Curry are both doing something that no one else has done in the game," Bruno said. "And that is making shots consistently from really long distances - 30 feet or more. There have been great shooters before, but not making shots from as far away as those two. That’s what’s happening. That’s what Caitlin is doing that no other women has ever done."

And NBA players like Curry and Kevin Durant and Chris Paul can't stop watching.

The women's game was also a welcome topic at the NCAA South Regional in Dallas over the weekend for more than lip service.

"Caitlin Clark is a killer," Duke coach John Scheyer said Saturday before losing to North Carolina State on Sunday. "She's what I wanted to be as a player - shoot with range and not afraid of any moment. She's off the charts. But to me, it's the heart she plays with. That competitive spirit separates her. She's been a joy to watch."

Duke guard Jeremy Roach will likely be watching tonight.

"The stars that they have - Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark," he said. "There are lot of great players, and they're getting the recognition they deserve."

And tonight could be just the beginning.