Hi. How are you all doing?
I am both exhausted and invigorated. I spent a lot of last week driving all around North Carolina and Virginia in search of excellent women’s college basketball, and I think it’s safe to say I found it.
Most of my week was spent in Raleigh, North Carolina, where No. 3 N.C. State was hosting its first-weekend NCAA tournament pod, which featured No. 14 Chattanooga, No. 11 Green Bay, No. 6 Tennessee, and, of course, N.C. State, which advanced to the Sweet 16. On Sunday, I also fit in a quick trip up to Blacksburg, Virginia, to watch No. 4 Virginia Tech lose to No. 5 Baylor in the second round.
It was an amazing week, but before I could even sit down to try and process my thoughts for this here newsletter, two of the coaches I’d watched had already left their jobs for new schools.
On Tuesday, Clemson officially announced it hired Shawn Poppie, formerly the head coach at Chattanooga, as its new head coach; and Kentucky announced that it hired Kenny Brooks, formerly the head coach at Virginia Tech, as its new head coach.
And so the women’s basketball world marches on, with the 43rd season of NCAA women’s basketball debuting before the season finale of season 42 is even aired. (And before I’ve even unpacked my suitcase from my night in Blacksburg, but that’s probably just a me problem.)
Paid subscribers to Power Plays (click the link above to become one) will get in-depth thoughts on my time in Raleigh and Blacksburg tomorrow, but before we get to our whip-around coverage of the week in women’s sports, I want to take a moment to talk about host sites and the first weekend of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament at large.
Okay, friends. Let’s do this.
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