After a weekend of having the most overanalyzed flagrant foul in WNBA history force-fed down my social media timeline, I woke Monday to learn the feeding was far from over. Good Morning America and other Disney-owned shows devoted entire segments to Chennedy Carter’s hip check of Caitlin Clark, as if there had never been a flagrant foul in the league’s history.

Later Monday, the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board used its institutional voice to declare that the foul “would have been seen as an assault” had it happened outside of a sporting event.

Can we calm down and take a breath? It was a hip check; repeat … a hip check! Did Carter bump her from the side when Clark was looking away and waiting on an inbound pass? Yes. Did Clark embellish her fall to the ground? Appeared that way. Did it deserve a flagrant designation? Absolutely. But the pearl-clutching that has followed is as exhausting as it is nauseating.

Did The Tribune editorial board do a think piece when the Sky rookie Angel Reese was slammed to the court and Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun was ejected? Why not? But a hip check deserves commentary and is likened to a crime in a city that has had more than enough problems with street violence? Make it make sense.

Had I not watched in real time, I would…

Two weeks ago, Iowa coach Lisa Bluder walked out of her corner office, moseyed 20 feet down the hall, and poked her head in assistant Jan Jensen’s office. Bluder had just made her retirement public and the university named Jensen — her longtime associate head coach — her successor.

“I promise I won’t leave you too much junk in there,” Bluder told her, motioning back to her (and soon-to-be Jensen’s) office.

Bluder and her staff have been in these offices for more than a decade since the building was renovated, and like any well-lived space, things have accumulated. Photos, letters, trophies, plaques — you name it. Any free tabletop is fair game for storing scouting reports and box scores. In recent seasons, as the wins piled up, more rings and pieces of net took up space, too.

The move is a long time coming. During her 30-year career, Jensen has had several opportunities to leave her spot as an assistant under Bluder, but it was never the right decision until now when she’ll make the move one seat to the right on the bench and two doors down the hallway.

“Nobody loves this place like I do.” @goiowa x #Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/etkzPEOikO

— Iowa Women’s Basketball (@IowaWBB) May 16, 2024

They have known each other too long for Bluder to not leave a letter…

RANCHOS VERDES, Calif. — Palm trees, a Pacific Ocean view and courtyard dinners at the Terranea Resort provided the backdrop this week for one of the Big Ten’s most important group of meetings in the league’s 128-year history.

More than 100 administrators, university leaders, faculty representatives and head coaches from the Big Ten’s 18 members and league office gathered at this plush, picturesque location to discuss an upcoming legal settlement that fundamentally will change college athletics. Those officials were sequestered with security for every function, ranging from outdoor meals to friendly mixers.

The topics weren’t limited to what’s known as the House v. NCAA case, which will cost the NCAA and its member schools $2.7 billion should it be approved. The league added a four-school West Coast wing starting this year, and the spring meetings were as much of a networking event as an opportunity to explore a path forward as a league and an industry.

“I think that we have a chance at this moment right now in college athletics to really reshape the model in the most meaningful way in our lifetimes and maybe the most meaningful way that has ever been,” said Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman, the new Division I Council chair. “How can we build this new…

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Only a handful of hours after the Iowa women’s basketball team landed home from its summer trip to Croatia last year, the coaches had barely dropped off their luggage at home before returning to Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

As then-interim athletics director Beth Goetz shared her short-term vision for the department, then-women’s basketball coach Lisa Bluder and then-associate coach Jan Jensen stood bleary-eyed in the back of the room, offering unwavering support. In retrospect, the reason sounds, well, reasonable.

“How do you show that this is our person?” Jensen told The Athletic two months later. “When you show up. It wasn’t even a question.”

Goetz was hired as Iowa’s full-time athletics director in January. This week, she had the chance to reciprocate that faith in her by naming Jensen as Bluder’s replacement as women’s basketball head coach.

“How amazing is it when the easy choice is the right choice and in Caitlin Clark’s words, the only choice?” Goetz said Wednesday.

On the surface level, Jensen’s hiring appears almost a formality. Jensen, 55, worked alongside Bluder for 32 years, first as an assistant at Drake, then the last 24 as the associate head coach at Iowa. The Hawkeyes…

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Five weeks after leading the Iowa women’s basketball team to its second consecutive national championship appearance, Lisa Bluder stepped down as head coach and handed the reins to longtime associate head coach Jan Jensen on Monday.

Bluder, the winningest coach in Big Ten women’s basketball history, concludes her career with a 528-254 record in 24 seasons at Iowa. In 39 seasons as a head coach, Bluder, 63, compiled an 884-396 mark.

Simply no one better at building a team… Thank you for believing in me more than anyone Enjoy retirement, coach. Very much deserved https://t.co/XnxmteSCTq

— Caitlin Clark (@CaitlinClark22) May 13, 2024

Jensen has coached alongside Bluder since 1993, first at Drake, then at Iowa beginning in 2000. Jensen played her final collegiate season for Bluder at Drake in 1990-91 and led the nation in scoring. Iowa athletics director Beth Goetz and school president Barbara Wilson announced Jensen’s elevation 15 minutes after Bluder’s retirement became official.

“It has been the honor of my career to be a part of the Iowa Hawkeye family, and to lead a women’s basketball program filled with so many talented and remarkable young women, who have gone on to do great things in their careers and, more importantly, in their…

The college basketball season might be over, but transfer portal season is here and it shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Our first ranking came out three weeks ago, and since then, much has changed in the sport’s landscape. We’ve crowned a national champion. Tara VanDerveer has retired. Tennessee hired Kim Caldwell. On the players’ front, it’s hard to imagine we won’t see more big names jump into the portal over the next week or so, and because of that, we’ll keep the updates coming. Until then, here’s a look at the top 15 prospects in the portal:

1. Raegan Beers

Oregon State sophomore forward

Key stats: 17.5 PPG, 10.3 RPG, 66 FG%

With multiple Beavers in the portal, it felt like only a matter of time for Beers to enter, too. As a first-team All-Pac-12 selection and former Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and conference Sixth Player of the Year, she’s going to hear from a lot of programs. She’s an elite offensive talent and an excellent defender who could be a foundational player for almost any program in the country. She shoots 69 percent at the rim, according to Pivot Analysis, and has a Mackenzie Holmes-like game, except Beers is only a sophomore. The loss of the Pac-12 is a loss for every women’s basketball fan. Because she was playing in the Pac-12…

It’s not surprising that corporations are lining up like fans along arena railings to get Caitlin Clark’s autograph. The former Iowa star is a transcendent talent who has proven she is as proficient at breaking viewership records as scoring marks, drawing capacity crowds at home and on the road and even attracting 17,000 spectators to an open practice during Final Four weekend. Her WNBA jersey sold out within hours of her being drafted No. 1 overall by the Indiana Fever, and multiple teams have moved upcoming games to larger venues to accommodate “unprecedented demand” for Fever games.

So, it makes perfect sense that she has been hired to pitch everything from home and auto insurance to performance drinks, from trading cards to supermarket chains, from automobiles to financial investment firms. She’s not only deserving of every opportunity but also has earned every endorsement deal that’s been placed before her, including a $28 million Nike pact that includes her own signature shoe line, as reported by The Athletic.

That being said, we should not delude ourselves into believing her appeal as an influencer is based solely on basketball, because it’s not. Arguing otherwise is…

The college basketball season might be over, but transfer portal season is here and it shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Our first ranking came out three weeks ago, and since then, much has changed in the sport’s landscape. We’ve crowned a national champion. Tara VanDerveer has retired. Tennessee hired Kim Caldwell. On the players’ front, it’s hard to imagine we won’t see more big names jump into the portal over the next week or so, and because of that, we’ll keep the updates coming. Until then, here’s a look at the top 15 prospects in the portal:

Stanford junior forward