Basketball fans gather in Minneapolis to watch Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers in Final Four
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At A Bar of Their Own in Minneapolis, fans packed in elbow-to-elbow to watch Iowa play UConn in an NCAA Final Four women’s basketball game.
The semifinal game pitted Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, one of the most popular college basketball players in the country, against hometown favorite Paige Bueckers, who grew up in Hopkins and plays for UConn.
At the bar, the crowd was sporting more Caitlin Clark jerseys, but some fans in Clark jerseys had split allegiances.
Annie Christensen wore a Clark jersey, but she said one of her father’s closest friends is Bueckers’ long time coach in Hopkins.
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“He knew that she was going to be a special player. And it’s just been amazing to see her grow into the player that she is now,” she said. “But it’s also kind of interesting for me because I went to the University of Iowa. So tonight, I’m rooting for Iowa, but I won’t be disappointed if UConn takes it in the end.”
At the next table, Laurie Aaronson, who helped crowdfund the bar, was cheering for South Carolina, where she went to graduate school, and where Minnesotan Tessa Johnson now plays. South Carolina won its matchup against North Carolina State and will play Iowa in the championship game on Sunday afternoon.
But Aaronson was also just there to see great basketball. She said when she invested, it was in hopes of nights like this.
“It’s just proof that the reality is if you create opportunities, people will come,” she said. “You know, we’ve been saying for 10-20 years that women’s sports is important, and people need to invest and people need to see it as real sport and it’s not and it’s never going to be the same as the men’s, but we don’t want it to be. We want it to be competitive, we want it to be entertaining.”
In south Minneapolis, nearly every seat in the 700-seat Riverview Theater was taken. The crowd cheered, mostly for Iowa, eating popcorn from the theater, which opened up for people to watch the game for free, and held a canned food drive to collect for people in need.
Carol Ann Petersen stood near the back, watching nervously as Iowa battled back in the second half, after being down for most of the first.
Petersen lives nearby and has watched Gophers women’s games at the theater before, but she said Friday night was different.
“It’s thrilling,” she said. “To have this theater filled to watch women’s sports and women’s basketball in particular — certainly different than when I started playing basketball in junior high school. This is big league and this is exciting...it is great basketball.”
Iowa pulled out a nail-biting victory, coming from behind to beat UConn 71 to 69.
Next up for the Hawkeyes (34-4) is a rematch with unbeaten South Carolina, which lost to Iowa in last year’s national semifinals. The Hawkeyes then fell short of winning the school’s first championship, falling to LSU in the title game. Now Clark is one win away from bringing her home state its first women’s basketball title in the final game of her college career.
“It’s gonna take one through five. They’re so skilled. They played a great game today," Clark said of South Carolina. “At this point anybody can take it. You’ve got to go prep, you’ve got one day to take care of yourself, so we’ll be ready.”
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