April 3, 2022 

Daily Briefing — April 3, 2022: JACKED UP — South Dakota State cruises to 2022 WNIT title

It's Championship Sunday!

Happy Sunday! Welcome to The Next’s Daily Briefing, featuring the daily Watch List and Yesterday’s Recap. Day 136 of college basketball is here, following South Dakota State grinding Seton Hall into dust for the WNIT title. The Jackrabbits have made either the NCAA tournament or WNIT in 15 of the 17 tournament years they’ve been in Division I, and they had gotten to the Sweet Sixteen in 2019 and the WNIT semis in 2014. While the Sweet Sixteen is a step higher, this finish does come with some nice hardware for the trophy case.

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This is also, notably, the last day of college basketball this season. It’s a sad fact indeed, but it’s only the case because we’ve got the national championship today! South Carolina and UConn go head-to-head in Minneapolis to cap off March Madness 2022, a rematch of the Battle 4 Atlantis this past Thanksgiving in which the Gamecocks throttled the Huskies in the second half en route to a 16-point win. This is a fundamentally different UConn team than the one that only scored three fourth-quarter points in that first matchup — but will that be enough?

Watch List, Sunday, April 3

(All times in Eastern, all rankings reflect tournament seeding)

National championship

#1 South Carolina vs. #2 UConn, 8 p.m., ESPN

Saturday, April 2 recap

Arkansas: Wing Sasha Goforth revealed that she’s been playing through gastroparesis since high school, and that “the combination of [that] and anxiety… became too much.” She’s stepping away from basketball, and while she didn’t specify that meant for good, it certainly seemed implied. Read her whole post; it’s incredibly heartfelt.

WNIT Championship

South Dakota State beat Seton Hall, 82-50, for its first-ever WNIT title. The game was tied at four just over two minutes in, and then the Jacks went on a 21-1 run (that’s not a typo). They also went on a 10-2 run in the second quarter and scored 11 unanswered in the late third.

South Dakota State allowed the Pirates to shoot just 26.6% from the field while assisting on 20 of its own 30 buckets; the Jacks had a +27 rebounding margin (again, not a typo). Backup big Kallie Theisen led with a 16-point, 11-rebound double-double in 17 minutes on 6-for-11 from the field and 4-for-7 from the line with six offensive boards, three assists, and no turnovers; off-ball guard Haleigh Timmer had 14 points on 5-for-11 shooting (2-5 3pt.), five rebounds, and two assists; big wing Myah Selland notched 12 points on 4-for-12 from the field (1-3 3pt.) and 3-for-6 from the line, 11 rebounds, five assists, and two steals against three turnovers; wing Paiton Burckhard tallied 13 points on 6-for-10 FG (1-3 3pt.) and seven rebounds (three offensive) in 19 minutes.

Written by Em Adler

Em Adler (she/they) covers the WNBA at large and college basketball for The Next, with a focus on player development and the game behind the game.

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