It's (almost) Friday, Friday, gotta play NCAA Tournament games on Friday, Friday.
The NCAA Tournament gets going on Friday, though the First Four began Wednesday night with Iowa State winning its way into the field. That's good news for this article, because I really wanted to write about the Cyclones. Specifically, I'm intrigued by the idea that Michigan has to stop Audi Crooks. How will they do it?
Here are the best individual matchups in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Diamond Johnson vs. Shayanne Sellers
Norfolk State's Diamond Johnson began her collegiate career at Rutgers before transferring to NC State. After two years there, she left for HBCU program Norfolk State. Johnson has really turned into an elite player with the Spartans, where she's averaging 19.0 points per game this season.
But I don't want to talk about Johnson's offense. Instead, I want to think about what she can do to Maryland on the other end of the floor. Johnson's 3.7 steals per game rank fifth in the nation.
Maryland's Shyanne Sellers has a chance to establish herself as a mid-first round pick in next month's WNBA Draft, but she's going to have to first prove she can beat one of basketball's best on-ball defenders. That doesn't necessarily mean that Sellers has to go out and score 25 points on Johnson, but she has to avoid being put through hell. Don't turn the ball over. Find an open Kayle Smikle for big shots. It's important for her draft stock that she figure out how to play well with a defender of Johnson's level draped all over her.
Mikayla Blakes vs. Deja Kelly
I've seen this before.
Way back in 2020, just a week or so before the pandemic hit, I was in San Antonio covering the Texas girl's state basketball tournament, where I got a chance to watch Deja Kelly lead her Duncanville team to a title. On the other side of the floor was a Cy Creek team made up of current Texas guard Rori Harmon and Texas A&M guard Kyndall Hunter, but Harmon was absent from the team that weekend for undisclosed reasons, so it was just a Kelly vs Hunter battle. Hunter was the flashy scorer at the time, but Kelly put her head down, played a quiet but outstanding game, and the Pantherettes came out on top.
I bring that up because there's some similarities to this game. Vanderbilt's Mikayla Blakes is the star scorer who could single-handedly win this game, just like Hunter was for Cy Creek. Kelly has flown under the radar this season since transferring to Oregon, but her ability to contribute across the board could lift the Ducks to the upset victory this weekend.
Yarden Garzon vs. Gianna Kneepkens
Let's call this the battle of the underrated stars.
Utah's Gianna Kneepkens has finally been getting a little national attention this year as she took over the lead scoring role in Utah from Alissa Pili, leading the team with 19.2 points per game while shooting 50.4 percent from the floor. Kneepkens does a bit of everything for the Utes. The team has a plus-21.1 net rating with Kneepkens on the floor, a number that drops to plus-13.9 when she's off the floor. She's crucial to her team's success.
Then there's Indiana, whose best players feels like she plugs away in even more obscurity. I don't think I've heard the name Yarden Garzon mentioned this year outside of when I'm actually watching Indiana play basketball, but the junior leads the Hoosiers in scoring at 14.5 points per game. She'll have the ball in her hands a lot in this one, giving her ample chances to showcase herself to the wider basketball-watching audience.
Meghan Anderson vs. Ayoka Lee
It sounds like Ayoka Lee will be back, though she's not expected to see a full workload. Still, she should be tough for Fairfield to contain when she's on the floor, because none of the Stags' starters are taller than 6-foot-1.
Lee is still recovering from a foot injury, so she probably won't be at 100 percent, but she can still do some major damage if Fairfield can't find a way to limit her.
The big story in this game is whether Lee can do more damage when she's on the floor than Fairfield star Meghan Anderson can do over the full course of the game. Anderson is averaging 15.4 points and 1.4 blocks per game and will likely be tasked with slowing Lee down, but she has to avoid foul trouble and make sure she has the energy to score when Lee is off the floor.
Murray State's offense v.s Lucy Olsen
Murray State has the nation's best offense, putting up 87.8 points per game. Katelyn Young leads the way ith 22.2 points per game, but Halli Poock and Haven Ford both average over 15 points as well. This is a well-rounded offensive attack that has a chance to really eat against an Iowa defense that's fairly middle-of-the-road.
What this likely means is that Lucy Olsen will need to channel former Iowa star Caitlin Clark if the Hawkeyes want to avoid the upset.
The former Villanova star is averaging 18.0 points per game this season — good, but not quite Clark-level good. However, we've seen Olsen reach deep and come up with huge scoring efforts before, like when she put up 28 points in an upset win last month against USC. Can she do that again against the Racers?
Audi Crooks vs. whoever Michigan throws at her
I'll be real with y'all: I don't know how Michigan is supposed to stop Audi Crooks.
I really like this young Michigan team, which is led by freshmen Syla Swords and Olivia Olson. Adding in Mila Holloway, three of the team's top four scorers are in their first collegiate seasons.
In a way, this Wolverines team reminds me a lot of last year's Iowa State team, when Crooks and Addy Brown were freshmen. It's a dangerous, young team that should be able to make at least one deep tournament run over the next few years. That's no guarantee, of course — I said the same thing about the Cyclones last year and then the team took a step back this season, just barely sneaking into the tournament.
But enough about talking about these teams in hypotheticals. Let's talk about what Michigan can do to slow down Crooks, who is averaging 23.3 points per game and shoots 72.1 percent at the rim.
The answer? Probably nothing. Michigan isn't awful at defending the rim, but their opponents shoot slightly better there than the Division I average, so it's certainly not a strength either. All five of the team's regular starters are listed as guards on the team roster, with Jordan Hobbs at 6-foot-3 being the tallest of those. It will probably be some combination of Olson and Greta Kampschroeder who get thrown at Crooks the most, or perhaps we see a major dose of Russian center Yulia Grabovskaia, a 6-foot-5 junior who averages just 13.8 minutes per game. Grabovskaia is probably Michigan's best bet, but she has a tendency to get in foul trouble, with her 6.4 fouls per 40 minutes ranking 3,346th in the nation.