Commentary: Caitlin Clark is a joy to watch, as is women's college basketball

So we are finally at the Final Four for men's and women's college basketball. Does that make it the Final Eight? Doesn't matter. Every year at this time I'm reminded there are many reasons I frequently prefer the women's game more than the men's game. Don't get me wrong. Men's college basketball is great, especially this time of year, when Cinderella stories present themselves and make it impossible not to root for them. That's fine, and I'll watch the men's games right down to the final buzzer of the championship game, because who doesn't like watching the championship game in any sport? Well, except for maybe pickleball. But the women's Final Four games? I'm there. The women's games are worth watching because, unlike the men's game, women's basketball is pure basketball. No dunking. No showboating. No pouting, no complaining, no inciting the crowd or antagonizing opponents. The women's game is basketball. Just basketball. At least until Caitlin Clark walks out onto the floor. She walked out on it Friday night, and probably walked off it a loser when the game ended. That's because Clark's University of Iowa team played undefeated South Carolina. (EDITOR'S NOTE: Clark scored 41 points in Iowa's upset win.) These words are being typed before that game is played, but South Carolina came into the game having won 40, 50 or 60 games in a row. South Carolina doesn't really care. It just administers the beating and lets others do the counting. Caitlin Clark's corn-fed team from Iowa was Carolina's opponent Friday night, and if you haven't seen Clark play this season, shame on you. It was shame on me for the first half of the season because during that period I didn't see her play, either. But then I kept hearing about her, so at some point in the middle of the season I watched an Iowa game, but I couldn't take my eyes off Clark. She's a combination of Steph Curry, Magic Johnson and Bill Russell. As a shooter she doesn't have logo range, she has post-logo range, more so even than Curry. As a passer, she's more magical than Magic, and as a winner, she's a female Russell. In a key midseason game against Indiana, with 1.2 seconds left in the game and Iowa down by two points, Clark caught an inbounds pass beyond the arc near the right sideline, leaped into the air, while drifting to the right, and drilled home a jaw-dropping, winning buzzer-beater. That nearly blew the roof off the arena in Iowa. Asked afterward by Holly Rowe how did she feel as the ball left her hand, Clark answered, "To tell you the truth, I thought it was money!" She didn't say it in a bragging sort of way. Just matter-of-factly, after draining a 40-foot missile. "To tell you the truth, I thought it was money!"????? Who even says something like that without coming across as revoltingly cocky? Leave it to the greatest player in the women's game to show the men how to be a basketball hero while enchanting, rather than alienating, everyone watching the game. "I practice that shot every day," Clark told Rowe. That sounded like sheer blunderbuss, until you watched the replay and thought to yourself, "Hmm, maybe she does." I watched most of Iowa's games the rest of the season, and came to the conclusion that there is no shot that Clark doesn't have. Whatever she needs, she has. Whatever she shoots, she makes. She does so from any angle, any location, any coordinate on the court. She's the greatest basket maker in college basketball, the best PLAYER in college basketball, male or female. She's also totally humble, a team player who shares the ball, almost to a fault, with her teammates, while somehow pumping in 30 to 40 points per game herself. Alas, her team Friday night had to play defending champion South Carolina, a team that doesn't need a Caitlin Clark to win because Carolina's roster is loaded with enough size, skill, muscle and hustle to dismantle any women's college team. Even Caitlin Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes. Clark stands about 6 feet. She's not particularly athletically imposing. She otherwise wouldn't stand out in a crowd — unless that crowd was in a large arena and she was on the floor spinning her magic. Basketball, the men's or women's game, is a sport designed to make spectators lean forward in their seats. It's a sport that provides a canvas for artists like Caitlin Clark to paint a masterpiece, win or lose. She has one more year of eligibility at Iowa, and it's hard to imagine, after a summer of hooping it up in some outdoor barnyard game, or indoor summer league action, that she could return to Iowa next season even better than this year's version of herself. Because players like this don't come around very often. That it's a woman and not a man makes it even neater still. Contact Jim Ingraham at jingraham4@gmail.com. Follow him @Jim_Ingraham on Twitter.