A Shoutout To The Hoopla Groupla Victors
And giving flowers to Illinois and Minnesota's tourney runs
It may officially be the college basketball offseason, but we have more business to attend to from these tournaments.
Last Week’s Hoopla:
The Hoopla Groupla Winners
Thank you to everyone who joined this year’s March Madness group. We had a new high of 73 entries, and congrats again to the big winners:
1st - Drake’s “Real” Bracket — 1650 points
2nd - Dan_Hope — 1600 points
3rd — Rakija Brown — 1590 points
The top three brackets earned prizes from Homefield: A free shirt, and $20 and $10 gift cards, respectively. I am still trying to get the contact info for Rakija Brown, so if you are that person or know who they are, please have them reach out to me either here or on Twitter.
This trio were three of the 41 (!) brackets who correctly predicted South Carolina’s national title win. Thankfully, I was also one of these 41, and that saved me from writing just about every name in this group. My picks were not… great in the first two rounds. I made up for it with correctly getting NC State in the Final Four, but ended finishing in 37th.
Being truly as mediocre as I could have been means there’s 36 brackets I must shout out. Here they are:
Drake’s “Real” Bracket
Dan_Hope
Rakija Brown
max_littman
HooplaFirst
The Only Good IU Team
ESPNLadies1
It’sTimeForMmmmadnessLDub
VColyer17
Monsieur Giggles
Caitlin Clark Fraud Watch
Go IU
Jaz Shelley Supremacy
WWCCD
kingrah23
Caitlin Clarkology
paynespicks..jesse
Leland Klein
Kate Martin Is My Homie
I know beans about wbb
Lukefrom2011
Auston Matricardi
graciebballin
Domcase22
Thierry Of Everything
3rd quarter Ohio State
Thomas’ Busted Bracket
Brenda’s Portal Exodus
CHH11
KrissyBirdsall_
ccart18
Walkman1332
Jacy’s Little Sheldon
A New Dawnasty
Wichael Matkins
And finally, Daily Staley(go blue tho), who beats me out on the tiebreaker final score
Each and every one of you were better than me, and I have to own that. Four of you — Caitlin Clarkology, Leland Klein, I know beans about wbb and Wichael Matkins — were even better than me without getting the champion right. Impressive work to each of you and to everyone who sent me to the shadow realm. Next year is DEFINITELY my year.
I also have unfortunate news for the second way to earn a shoutout here, which is by picking more Big Ten team runs correct than me. ESPN, unless I am missing the solution, has made it extremely difficult to scan through what every bracket picked for any specific game. The Bracketcast only shows the Top 25 of the group from what I can see, and I do not want to individually sift through 70 brackets for these if I’m being fully transparent with you.
If there’s a work around, please let me know and I will do the shoutouts. I feel especially bad because I… well I was awful with Big Ten predictions. Only Indiana losing in the Sweet 16 landed right for me, a very not good 1 out of 7 rate. Surely many others did much better, but I guess we will never know!
Thank you again for everyone who participated, and I can’t wait to do it all again in a year.
Illinois Wins WBIT, Minnesota Falls In WNIT Final
Did you know the Big Ten was in the championship game of all three postseason tournaments? Folks, no other conference was even in two!
The 1-2 record in said finals is besides the point, especially considering how well the depth of the conference performed in both the WBIT and WNIT. The five Big Ten teams in those two tournaments combined for a 16-4 record, with each team winning at least two games in their respective runs. That is a fantastic showing for teams that ranked between 7th and 12th in the conference this season.
Of the many great runs through these tournaments, Illinois was the one that reached the mountain top, doing so with an impressive 71-57 win over Villanova. The Illini trailed at halftime but dominated over the final 20 minutes, outscoring the Wildcats 42-25. Makira Cook, as she was all tournament, was spectacular, finishing with 27 points and 5 assists. Kendall Bostic added 15 points and 15 rebounds, while Genesis Bryant had 17 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
All three were named to the WBIT All-Tournament team for good reason, while Cook earned MVP. She deserved it. After some struggles with efficiency this season, Cook was dialed in throughout the WBIT, hitting over 50 percent of her attempts in 4/5 games. She also broke 20 points in three of the games, averaged nearly five assists per contest and was the star the Illini needed to get through.
This tourney run proved the type of team Illinois had the potential to be all season, and it is another great step for this program under Shauna Green. Even more significant is that Bostic, Bryant and Cook have all said they will return for another year, which means the Illini should be considered a real threat in the Big Ten in 2024-25.
The WBIT was nearly an all-Big Ten final, as Penn State was taken out by the Wildcats in the round prior 58-53. In what I expected to be a high-scoring affair, both teams shot poorly and turned it over a combined 39 times. The game was what you could call “ugly” but Lucy Olsen’s 21 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists got Villanova through in the end. Olsen is a terrific player who I would love to see in the Big Ten, which I am saying for no particular reason.
This was also a promising end to the year for the Nittany Lions, who went on a big of an end-of-season rollercoaster to get here. Once Ashley Owusu was able to play, Penn State looked like a team that could compete for big things, but a huge losing skid left them outside the big dance. That just made this semifinal run that much more encouraging for what’s to come.
Over in the WNIT, it was Minnesota who made it all the wya to the final, taking down Pacific, North Dakota State, Wyoming and Troy on the way to a matchup with Saint Louis.
It was great to see the Gophers play some games at closer to full strength, as Mara Braun played through the first two contests, while Sophie Hart was available all tournament. This is still a young team that showed great potential when healthy under Dawn Plitzuweit, and four wins in a postseason setting is huge for this team’s development.
The Billikens ultimately dominated the final and won the WNIT with a 69-50 final. Credit to Saint Louis, who took out both Minnesota and Wisconsin to get there, and who also overcame starting the year 10-17 to win 10 of its last 11 games and earn a trophy.
Speaking of the Badgers, they were able to win two games in the WNIT before falling to the Billikens. Again, this is big progress for a program trying to build from the ground up. Marisa Moseley has a star in Serah Williams and has found some nice pieces to work around her.
This season’s 15 wins ties the most the program has seen since 2010-11. There’s a lot to be upbeat about in Madison.
The final WNIT Big Ten team to discuss was Purdue, who beat Butler and Duquesne by a combined 32 points before losing to Vermont 67-59. Compared to Minnesota and Wisconsin, who are getting valuable building blocks, I was happy for Purdue to send-off some key program vets with postseason victories. Abbey Ellis, Jeanae Terry, Madison Layden and Caitlyn Harper were significant pieces to what Katie Geralds did here, and the program is going to look different without them there.
Now, yes, Layden opted out of the tournament and Harper was out with an injury, but this season felt like a mix of old and new for Katie Geralds, and seeing some wins like this feels like a big deal, both for the sendoff and for showing what Purdue can be moving forward. I still have a lot of belief that Geralds can make a major impact with this program, and next season will say a lot in how that is looking.
Wanted to say some quick thoughts on some more news-related Big Ten women’s basketball topics that I’ll talk further on in future Hooplas:
The WNBA Draft is on tonight at 7:30 and you should watch it. Caitlin Clark, Jacy Sheldon, and Celeste Taylor will be the Big Ten’s in-person representation, but the conference should also have a few more picks outside of those players. Clark will be on the Indiana Fever, but I’m super intrigued where Sheldon and Taylor end up. I think Sheldon will be a future All-Star and I’m willing to go on record with that, she is such a talented guard with a wide skillset that should translate. Also, for the love of God, someone draft Mackenzie Holmes. That injury stash for one season will be so worth it I swear to you.
The transfer portal is transfer portaling. Big names have flown out of a few Big Ten programs, including Laila Phelia at Michigan, Riley Nelson at Maryland, DeeDee Hagemann at Michigan State, Rikki Harris at Ohio State, Shay Ciezki at Penn State and many more. I definitely want to talk transfers on here soon, both departures and arrivals, but it’s all so chaotic early that I was hoping to let it settle first before doing so. I retweet Big Ten-related transfer news as I see it on Twitter, but expect some discussion here as well in the near future.
Next week I will be doing the End-Of-Season Hoopla 40. That is my personal list of the 40 best players in the Big Ten based on the 2023-24 season. It is not a list for projecting the future and it will not include the four new Big Ten teams yet, just the 40 best players from last season based on what I saw. See you then!
Photo Credit: Illinois Women’s Basketball (@IlliniWBB), Twitter/X
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