LET THE KIDS PLAY!

The final round of the women's college basketball tournament is set, and perhaps we can stop projecting the Culture Wars stuff on the teams, last year's champion Louisiana State in particular.  After last year's title game turned into Punditry Reading Deep Significance into a couple of teams giving each other bulletin board material, the regional final again featuring Iowa and Louisiana State again turned into opportunities for keyboard warriors to focus on everything but what happened on the court.  Here I was a year ago.  "Iowa brought a team of corn-fed prairie kids, while Louisiana State were ready to go clubbing somewhere in the French Quarter, and let's say there wasn't a lot in the way of inclusive spirit on social media."

It's not that the keyboard warriors have backed down during this tournament.  A Los Angeles sports pundit named Ben Bolch thought it would be funny to enthuse the UCLA fans with "UCLA-LSU is America’s sweethearts vs. its basketball villains."  Apparently the nastier bits have been redacted out of that column, and the author posted an Act of Contrition.  The praise he offered for the local kids didn't come off so well, either.

Then there’s UCLA, which operates in the saintly shadows while being as wholesome as a miniature stuffed Bruin mascot. UCLA coach Cori Close gives reporters unfettered access to players and practices, repeatedly thanking them for trumpeting the emergence of the women’s game.

She’s unfailingly cheery, loudly announcing her presence early Friday morning after the team’s flight was delayed by 2½ hours and arrived close to midnight.

“Coach is here!” Close said joyfully in a corridor outside the interview area.

Her players reflect her sunny disposition while being as controversial as a pledge drive for underprivileged children.

Those players have also played on the same team as their Louisiana State rivals, and their comments reinforce a commonplace, namely that people who play at that level have to keep the rivalry professional, as, because of national teams, or the way the transfer portal, free agency, and trades work, your opponent today is your past or future teammate.

[Lauren] Betts and [Charisma] Osborne disputed the notion that Reese lacked class, and they should know — they played with her for Team USA last summer.

“She’s an amazing teammate and I really enjoyed playing with her,” Betts said. “I think she’s an amazing person and obviously when it comes to basketball you’re trying to win, so it’s like, whatever you have to do to win, I don’t think that people should judge her for that.”

Said Osborne: “She’s really nice off the court as well and people don’t always see that.”

Everyone can see for themselves Saturday. How will the nation’s most polarizing team conduct itself versus the one known for its class? The reckoning is here.

Louisiana State got the better of UCLA to advance to the round of eight, but not before the players had to react to the negative campaigning.  (Isn't there enough of that for everyone in politics, or the way the beer companies slag on each other?)

LSU guard Hailey Van Lith defended her team Sunday following a Los Angeles Times column that described players as "dirty debutantes," calling those who perceive them negatively as "being racist toward my teammates."

Van Lith said the team saw the commentary before its Sweet 16 matchup against UCLA on Saturday. She wishes they had not read it because "that can crush your soul a little bit that someone would ever say that about us that doesn't know us."

"We do have a lot of Black women on this team, and unfortunately, that bias does exist still today, and a lot of the people that are making those comments are being racist towards my teammates," Van Lith, who is white, said. "I'm in a unique situation where I see with myself, I'll talk trash and I'll get a different reaction than if Angel [Reese] talks trash. I have a duty to my teammates to have their back. Some of the words that were used in that article were very sad and upsetting.

"Calling us the dirty debutantes, that has nothing to do with sports. That's not motivating. But in my opinion, I know for a fact that people see us differently because we do have a lot of Black women on our team who have an attitude and like to talk trash and people feel a way about it. At the end of the day, I'm rocking with them because they don't let that change who they are. They stay true to themselves, and so I'll have their back."

During her postgame news conference following LSU's 78-69 victory over UCLA, Tigers coach Kim Mulkey also ripped the column that portrayed her team's matchup against the Bruins as a "reckoning" between good versus evil, calling it "sexist," "awful" and "wrong."

Ms Van Lith's reaction is intriguing.  Columnists often provide teams with bulletin board material, soul-crushing though it might be, motivational it often is, and so it was in that game.

Then Louisiana State had to play Iowa to get to the finals, and this time Iowa won, but the keyboard warriors again had to inject themselves.  Take the eternally annoying Nancy Armour.  Please?

It comes with a price, this veneer of toughness and brashness that Angel Reese has fashioned.

She hears the slights and sees the not-remotely-veiled slurs and she squashes them away, hiding the hurt in a little corner of her soul because she recognizes this is bigger than she is. She smiles and pretends she’s above it all because she knows there are little Black girls and young Black women who are watching her and thinking if Angel Reese can be authentic and unapologetic, they can be, too.

That's the authenticity trap, isn't it? "Put another way, the majority-minority or more diverse or whatever nation the United States is likely to become will benefit more rather than less from a common set of norms."  Whilst Louisiana State's players revel in their transgressivity and get upset when keyboard warriors notice?  "There are limits to a pity-party, and letting some people wallow in their pity-party whilst others have to be shamed for their complicity does little to transform human interactions for the better."  Which is exactly what's going on off the court.

Reese is savvy enough to recognize that sports are as much about entertainment as they are athletic skill, and fully embraced her role in the show. She’s as prodigious a trash-talker as she is a rebounder, and the enduring image from both of the NCAA's tournaments last year is Reese waving her ring finger at Caitlin Clark at the end of LSU’s win over Iowa in the national championship game.

It was never personal. Reese was just doing what basketball players, male and female, have been doing since the game began.

That authenticity schtick, though, wears thin after a while.

Reese carries the additional burden of representation for young Black women. By owning her talents and success, Reese is showing those young women it’s OK to express themselves. To be proud of who they are and not back down to anyone, on the basketball court or off.

Off the court, though, trouble might their way come. "More recently, a series of black women in high places have gone [onetime Detroit mayor Coleman Young] one better, simply by being sassy their authentic selves and daring anyone to say something, let alone do something, about it."  Perhaps it would behoove today's sports stars to remember Vince Lombardi's thoughts about end-zone celebrations.  Act like you've been there before.

Then Iowa and Louisiana State played the game, and again the keyboard warriors had something to carry on about.

The game’s overall tenor was physical without being underhanded, Iowa playing with an edge they lacked in last year’s championship game loss. Both teams conducted themselves during the game with respect for it and each other, with no cheap shots or gestures evidenced. The same cannot be said for the pregame moment during "The Star-Spangled Banner" when LSU decided it would be a perfect time to channel its inner Colin Kaepernick.

Um, no.  There are teams that simply line up for the Anthem.  There are teams that play a video explaining why their anthem protest isn't a protest.  There are teams that get hydrated one last time in the locker room during the Anthem.  That's been Louisiana State's practice.  No matter what a team does, someone will grouse.

We'll close with two further observations.  First, the protagonists in this WWE Smackdown the keyboard warriors seem bent on promoting understand their sport rather than encouraging the discord.

Much has been made about the competitive fire and trash talk both players display when they are on the court. But when Reese pointed at her finger and made the John Cena "You can't see me" hand gesture at Clark as LSU closed out its victory over Iowa in the national championship game last year, the discourse surrounding both her trash talk and relationship with Clark intensified.

Reese was once again asked Sunday about talking trash, particularly as it relates to what happened last year.

"I don't think people realize it's not personal," Reese said. "Once we get out between those lines, if I see you walking down the street, it's like, 'Hey, girl, what's up? Let's hang out.' I think people just take it like we hate each other. Me and Caitlin Clark don't hate each other. I want everybody to understand that. It's just a super-competitive game. Once I get between those lines, there's no friends. I'm going to talk trash to you. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get in your head the whole entire game, but after the game, we can kick it. I don't think people really realize that.  "That's fine. I'll take the villain role. I'll take the hit for it, but I know we're growing women's basketball. If this is the way we're going to do it, then this is the way we're going to do it. You either like it or you don't."

Reese described her relationship with Clark as "super-competitive," noting the two had been playing each other since high school and then again when Reese started her career at Maryland.

I'm not sold on a variation on the Culture Wars as necessarily the best value proposition for the sport, but let's see what emerges.

Oh, there still is a national championship to be determined.  Connecticut will play Iowa; North Carolina State will play South Carolina.  Connecticut and State have teams in the finals of both the men's and women's tournaments, that being the first time two programs have accomplished that in the same year.  Only Connecticut have managed to win both titles in the same year.  The first basketballs will be tossed up on Friday.