Mark Madden: NCAA women's basketball final will be remembered, but at what cost?

Women’s sports too often can’t get out of their own way, not least when the spotlight shines brightest.

The U.S. women’s soccer team fell off its perch as America’s sweethearts via too much politicizing. What did that accomplish?

Now a women’s basketball Final Four that started out sizzling thanks to the emergence of and fanfare for Iowa’s Caitlin Clark will be remembered for taunting and the resulting fallout, the story punctuated via something dumb said by first lady Jill Biden.

Let’s cut your likely rebuttal off at the pass by acknowledging that male athletes behave like idiots, too. It’s constant, and it’s overbearing. Aaron Rodgers makes the most obnoxious of female athletes look like Miss Congeniality.

The men act like jerks. If the women follow suit, OK. But it’s ill-advised. Dare to be different.

Biden mooted the notion that finalists LSU and Iowa should both visit the White House. The winner and loser. In the name of sportsmanship, blah, blah, blah.

But that’s not how it works. The winner gets the honor of visiting the White House, if anybody still thinks that’s an honor. The losers lost.

Tournament MVP Angel Reese of LSU called Biden’s suggestion “A JOKE” on Twitter. On Instagram, Reese said, “WE NOT COMING.”

Biden got backlash, then backpedaled. Only LSU is invited. It’s a rare blow to the woke mob’s attempt to make everything into a participation trophy.

Biden’s since-rescinded invite to Iowa seemed an attempt to include Clark, the hyped-up white girl.

Clark taunted foes during Iowa’s charge to Sunday’s championship game by using the “you can’t see me” hand gesture popularized by WWE’s John Cena.

Clark’s antics were described as reflecting her competitive fire and earned notice from Cena on Twitter.

But in the final, LSU trampled Iowa. Reese mimicked the “you can’t see me” gesture while staring down Clark, pointing to her (championship) ring finger for good measure. Clark didn’t react.

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy called Reese a “classless piece of (expletive).” Because when anybody thinks class, they immediately think of Barstool and Portnoy. Media types Keith Olbermann and Danny Kanell also criticized.

I hate when the race card gets played, but criticizing Reese and not Clark is absolutely a racist take. Vice-versa too, right? (Clark had no problem with Reese.)

So that’s what this year’s NCAA women’s basketball final will be remembered for. Maybe that’s progress. It usually isn’t remembered at all. The championship game drew an average of 9.9 million viewers on ESPN, making it the most-viewed women’s basketball final ever.

I watched just to see what LSU coach Kim Mulkey was wearing, and to see if she’d do “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” for an encore. Roll over, Elton John, and tell Liberace the news.

The officiating for the women’s Final Four was an excrement show.

It was the first time the women’s Final Four was refereed exclusively by female officials. It was a nod to the 50th anniversary of Title IX, which requires educational institutions to provide male and female athletes with equal access to financial aid. But not equal access to being a referee, it appears.

In the rush to make history, did superior male referees get left at home? It’s a fair question given the weak caliber of the officiating, which had too many talking.

Clark is a very good player. But most times I watch the latest “best women’s basketball player,” I think that Suzie McConnell-Serio was probably better. McConnell-Serio attended Seton LaSalle High School and Penn State and played point guard on the 1988 U.S. women’s basketball team that won Olympic gold in Seoul.

But there was no hype machine for women’s basketball then. Heck, there wasn’t even a WNBA till 1997.

By the way, Clark can’t enter the WNBA for another year. League eligibility rules state that players must be 22 and have gone to a four-year university where her original class would have graduated or will graduate within three months of the draft.

That’s antiquated, especially next to the NBA’s one-and-done rule. But Clark makes plenty of NIL money while playing with Iowa, more than her WNBA salary will be.