College basketball is emerging from a brief era of matriarchy, but is it over?
The 2024 college basketball recruiting class comes to the sport on the back of a historic shift in popularity. This year, for the first time in March Madness history, more people tuned in to the women's championship game than the men's.
The women's NCAA final had 18.9 million viewers, while the men's had just 14.8 million.
There’s no denying that Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese were the reasons for this. A combination of star power and controversy fueled a surge in demand for women’s basketball. Online chatter ran wild about the two players, touching on sensitive points of social and political conversation, not because of one, but two consecutive Final Four appearances.
Now, if there is a popularity contest between the two sports, the next generation of men's basketball stars are paying close attention to the other side as they begin their college careers.
For some of the top male recruits, the lines between sports are blurring.
“I think we're all the same and we should categorize ourselves as different because at the end of the day, we're all the same people,” said Dylan Harper, the No. 2 recruit nationally in the class of 2024 who committed to Rutgers and turned down offers from top programs such as Duke, Indiana and Kansas.
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Team USA's Dylan Harper drives to the basket during the game against Team World during the Nike Hoop Summit 2024 on April 13, 2024 at Moda Center Arena in Portland, Oregon. (Cameron Browne/NBAE via Getty Images)
Harper told Fox News Digital at the Rutgers men’s basketball team’s media day on Tuesday that he has received advice from Michael Jordan since he was a child, through several phone calls arranged by his father, Ron Harper Sr., who won five NBA championships and three as Jordan’s teammate on the Chicago Bulls in the late 1990s. Jordan’s advice was only half the story, though. Dylan’s mother, Maria Harper, has worked as a women’s basketball coach since Dylan was a child, and he, too, has looked to that sport for inspiration over the years.
Now, as a college player, that half of his experience could influence his leadership.
“We all want to be leaders in whatever capacity we can,” Harper said when asked if she would consider Clark and Reese as leadership role models during her time at Rutgers.
Harper is not alone among top recruits or among his own teammates.
Ace Bailey, the nation’s No. 3 recruit this year who committed to Rutgers before Harper, turning down an offer from powerhouse Kentucky, is with him. Bailey told Fox News Digital at his media day Tuesday that, unlike Harper, he only started following women’s basketball in “the last three years” because of players like Clark and Reese.
“With her leadership, especially Clark, she brings a lot of energy to get her team going, whether it's a long shot or a jump shot,” Bailey said.
Bailey then pointed to a specific part of Clark's game, regarding how he talks to opponents on the court, especially against Reese and Clark's other former rival at LSU, Flau'jae Johnson.
“He talks to them in a negative way, but with his teammates he's positive, that's how he does it, especially with Angel Reese. They're competitive, Flau'jae, they're all competitive, they just compete and love the game,” Bailey said.
Reese and Johnson beat Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes in the 2023 national championship game, but then lost to Iowa in this year's Final Four.
Clark's reputation as a trash talker has been publicly denounced by Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon, who said, “They talk to each other, nobody talks more trash than Caitlin too… it's a different generation!” of Clark and Reese at a press conference on June 27.
However, Bailey is also impressed by the way Clark handles trash talk.
“She doesn't worry about anything other people say, you can say she missed some shots in one game, but the next game she was on fire, she doesn't worry about anybody else, she knows what she's capable of and she just keeps getting better,” Bailey said.
FEVER SHOULD HIRE AN 'ENFORCEMENT MAN' TO 'PROTECT' CAITLIN CLARK, SAYS FORMER NBA ALL-STAR WHO HAS BEEN ON BOTH SIDES OF ROLE
Ace Bailey, a five-star recruit for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, looks on as the Scarlet Knights play the Stonehill Skyhawks at Jersey Mike's Arena on December 30, 2023 in Piscataway, New Jersey. (Rich Schultz/Getty Images)
Despite Clark's reputation, the fact that she was the unanimous WNBA Rookie of the Year this year and her alleged trash-talking skills, Bailey said she would still choose to ask Reese for advice if she could only talk to one big women's basketball star.
“I would probably talk to Angel Reese, her competitiveness for sure, what keeps her driving,” Bailey said.
As the team's top recruits, Harper and Bailey are less focused on drawing national attention to themselves as individuals as Clark and Reese did last year.
Asked what they want the country to see in the inevitable national coverage the show will receive this year, both Bailey and Harper insisted they hope the focus is on their teammates rather than them.
“You can't win alone, you have to win as a whole group of guys,“ Harper said.
“I want you to see my team!” Bailey added.
Recruits and head coach Steve Pikiell are likely relying on this approach to help keep the team focused and grounded for a potential historic run in the NCAA tournament this year. Whether that approach will be enough to help the men's tournament compete with the women's tournament in terms of television ratings remains to be seen, however.
While Clark and Reese have moved on to the WNBA, women’s college basketball remains anchored by higher-profile stars like Paige Bueckers, Juju Watkins, Hailey Van Lith and Johnson. That’s because, unlike the pathway between men’s college basketball and the NBA, the WNBA requires players to be at least 22, have completed their college eligibility and have graduated from a four-year college. The NBA’s “once and done” rule, which allows players to declare for the draft after just one college season, has drained the sport of long careers of top pro prospects for years.
Harper, Bailey and Duke freshman Cooper Flagg, who was the No. 1 recruit nationally this year, will be the biggest stars of this men's college season, but each of them could be in the NBA Draft in 2025.
On top of that, women's soccer could have another key advantage in terms of attracting television viewership, according to ESPN women's college basketball announcer Holly Rowe.
Rowe said last month that men's basketball should even consider rule changes to make it more similar to women's basketball.
“I don't know if the men will surpass them,” Rowe said. “I love that women play quarterfinals, the game moves faster, it's more exciting. You can sit at a men's college basketball game and then go to a women's game and think, 'I don't know, it just flows better.' So I think the men's game could benefit from some rule changes to make the game flow a little bit better.”
Since 1954, men's college basketball has been played with two halves instead of four quarters. It has become one of the iconic structures of the sport that sets it apart from other levels of basketball. However, Rowe believes the viewing experience would be enhanced if the same four-quarter structure used in the NBA, WNBA and women's college basketball were followed.
Whether the NCAA ends up changing the men's rules to be identical to those of the women's game at some point in the next few years will speak to just how big of an impact Clark and Reese left on the college basketball landscape during their heated college rivalry.
It could also be revealing as to how much of an impact Clark in particular can have on the landscape of professional sports.
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Angel Reese, right, and Caitlin Clark watch during the second half against the Chicago Sky on June 23, 2024, at Wintrust Arena in Chicago. (Melissa Tamez/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
In just her rookie season in the league, Clark has proven she can make the WNBA competitive with the NFL, long regarded as the undisputed giant of American sports in terms of television demand.
Earlier this month, Clark's Indiana Fever played in front of a television audience of 1.26 million viewers, in a game against the Minnesota Lynx that was played at the same time as a Week 1 Friday night NFL game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers.
Things got even more unusual on Sunday, though, when Clark's first playoff game against the Connecticut Sun was watched by an average of 1.84 million, despite the fact that it took place during multiple Sunday afternoon NFL games, and despite the fact that Clark's game turned into a blowout in the second half.
Reese wasn't even playing opposite Clark in those matchups.
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