Iowa’s Caitlin Clark Leads Renewed Fandom for Women’s College Basketball

The recent Women’s NCAA basketball tournament kicked off with a historic Bang, as the University of Iowa faced off against the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in the Big Ten championship game, marking the highest viewership on CBS since 1999. The standout player, Caitlin Clark of the Iowa Hawkeyes, has been driving a surge in viewership, propelling women’s college basketball into the spotlight.

Clark’s exceptional performance on the court has captured the interests of millions of fans, both seasoned followers and newcomers to the sport. Last season, Louisiana State University‘s Angel Reese also gained widespread recognition as a key player on the championship-winning team, further boosting the popularity of women’s collegiate basketball.

With March Madness in full swing, Inside Higher Ed introduces its annual Academic Performance Tournament, a bracket that highlights academic achievements rather than athletic prowess. The tournament uses the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate (APR) as a measure of academic success among college teams, focusing on student-athletes’ progress and graduation rates.

The absence of data on athletes who leave programs in good academic standing in the APR metric ensures a fair evaluation of academic performance. For teams with identical APRs, the Graduation Success Rate (GSR) for the 2022–23 academic year acts as a tiebreaker, emphasizing the importance of student-athlete graduation within six years of entry.

In a first for the Academic Performance Tournament, Creighton University and Drake University found themselves in a rare tie, matching not only in APR but also in GSR and Federal Graduation Rate (FGR). To determine a winner, the universities’ overall GSR scores were compared, resulting in a close victory for Creighton by a slim margin.

The inclusion of Ivy League institutions such as Columbia and Princeton, which do not report FGRs due to their lack of athletic scholarships, posed a challenge in the bracket. Columbia clinched a victory over the University of Michigan in a tiebreaker based on overall GSR, while Holy Cross emerged victorious in a coin toss against Princeton, showcasing their commitment to academic excellence.

Despite the absence of FGR data for Ivy League schools, the Academic Performance Tournament crowned a deserving winner with a flawless APR of 1000, a perfect team GSR of 100, and an impressive overall GSR of 99. Congratulations to the Lions for their outstanding academic achievements in women’s college basketball.