If the basketball gods had been benevolent, then hoops fans would have been in for a treat in this year’s NCAA women’s basketball tournament. Had the dominoes fallen in the right places, the game’s two best players, University of Southern California guard JuJu Watkins and University of Connecticut guard Paige Bueckerswould have met in Friday’s Final Four. If Bueckers wins tonight, Sunday will be her last chance to win a national title.

The basketball gods weren’t kind, and the clash of the two college superstars wasn’t to be.

But the basketball gods weren’t kind, and the clash of the two college superstars wasn’t to be. First, USC and UConn were put in the same bracket, which made a Final Four matchup impossible. Then, on top of that, Watkins suffered a devastating, season-ending knee injury in USC’s second-round win against Mississippi State. USC and UConn did eventually meet in the Elite Eight round, but fans were robbed of what could have been a historic game if the USC star had been healthy. Not surprisingly, the Huskies beat the Trojans, 78-64, behind Bueckers’ 31 points.

Bueckers vs. Watkins would have been the most anticipated matchup in either the men’s or women’s bracket, a contest between the sport’s most recognizable stars. It would have meant all the more this year, which has not produced the kind of Cinderella run that gives casual fans — and those who haven’t filled out brackets — a reason to keep watching beyond the tournament’s first weekend.

We didn’t get March Madness this year as much as we got March predictability. In the men’s and women’s tournaments, there have been some good games but few surprises or upsets. With the UCLA Bruins, the South Carolina Gamecocks, the Texas Longhorns and the UConn Huskies, the women’s Final Four features three No. 1 seeds and one No. 2 seed. (Watkins’ Trojans were a No. 1 seed.) The men’s Final Four features four No. 1 seeds, the first time that’s happened since 2008.

As it has been for several seasons now, the women’s tournament is the one with the bigger star power and the better storylines. The women’s game features players who — partly because they stay in college longer — generally have more name recognition than their male counterparts. The women’s championship has set viewership records in the past two seasons by nearly doubling the number of fans who tuned in year over year. Almost 5 million people watched the women’s championship in 2022, 9.9 million watched in 2023 as Angel Reese’s LSU Tigers defeated Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyesand 18.9 million watched the much-hyped battle in the 2024 championship when South Carolina avenged its 2023 Final Four loss against Clark’s team.

As it has been for several seasons now, the women’s tournament is the one with the bigger star power and the better storylines.

The semifinal games during those years have also garnered great ratings. If the growth of college basketball is measured by how rapidly the viewership increases, then there’s no question that the women’s game is having a cultural moment that the men’s game is not. Anyone asking why need look no further than what’s always driven fervent viewership of sports: the rivalries. One of the storylines of the previous two tournaments, for example, was whether Iowa’s Clark could best South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston or LSU’s Reese to win a title. Clark fell short each time.

Even though we didn’t get a Bueckers-Watkins matchup, there are still important matchups to watch. For example, can Gamecocks coach Dawn Staleythe first Black head coach of a Division 1 women’s college basketball team to win multiple NCAA women’s championships, win another championship at the expense of UConn coaching legend Geno Auriemma, who has won 11?

For better or worse, those storylines have fed the surge in interest in women’s college basketball. It’s also where many fans hoped this year’s tournament would land, with a Watkins-Bueckers battle to keep the streak of legendary rivalries going. The problem is that many of these “rivalries,” at least the idea that they’re bitter, are projected onto the athletes, who, despite being fierce competitors, don’t see themselves as foes. As sports fans, we all need something to root for, which often means we identify a heel who needs to be vanquished.

Enter Bueckers, who in her senior season is averaging 19 points per game, shooting 61.3% from the field and leading all NCAA women with 4.8 assists per game. She’s expected to be the first pick in the WNBA draft. She has won almost every award possible, from a Naismith to three AP All American honors. All she’s missing is the championship, and a foe to annihilate along the way.

That, perhaps, is as it should be. As much as fans enjoy rivalries and as interesting as they make the game, there’s a strong argument that women like Watkins, who won the AP Player of the Year awardand Bueckers, deserve to have their moments without being pitted against each other in fans’ imaginations.

Keith Reed

Keith Reed is an award-winning journalist and a past senior editor at ESPN. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Root, Vibe, Essence and elsewhere.

Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers. One of the biggest scandals of the second Trump administration closed a dark chapter this week, with the dismissal of New York Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption charges. I’ll explain why (perhaps counterintuitively) the dismissal was also a bright spot for the rule of lawwhich continues to be tested in a slew of cases — including when it comes to immigration, where Trump officials are risking contempt sanctions over deportations.

But first, the Adams affair. Recall that the DOJ, led in the effort by former Trump defense attorney Emil Bove, tried to get the Democratic mayor’s case dismissed without prejudice. That would have created political leverage over Adams to revive the case later if the feds were to become displeased with the mayor’s cooperation on immigration enforcement or anything else. The charade was too much for even Republican prosecutors working on the case, and they resigned rather than do Bove’s dirty work.

The judge refused, too. Joe Biden appointee Dale Ho vindicated those New York prosecutors and blasted DOJ brass when he agreed Wednesday to toss the case — crucially, he did so with prejudice. “Everything here smacks of a bargain,” Judge Ho wroteadding that he “cannot and will not authorize such a result.”

So Adams lucked out, Bove struck outand an independent judiciary narrowly escaped the episode.

Elsewhere in Donald Trump’s DOJanother one of his personal lawyers — New Jersey’s newly minted interim U.S. attorney, Alin Habba — dressed up in a bulletproof vest for a gang arrest documented in a New York Post photoshoot. To be clear, this is not the sort of thing that prosecutors do. One reason is that a prosecutor who witnesses an arrest risks becoming a witness in the case, which can complicate matters.

And while Habba’s lack of qualifications raises concerns about her getting the job permanently, she has work to do if she wants to catch up with the outlandish behavior of And MartinTrump’s top prosecutor pick for the nation’s capital. Former prosecutors are disturbed at the prospect of the former Jan. 6 defense lawyer getting the permanent nod for that office. Martin’s antics could probably fill their own newsletter, but for now, I’ll note the latest reporting on his strange tenurewhich is that he compared the Jan. 6 prosecutions to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Speaking of Washington, D.C., and Trump DOJ issuesa judge there pressed the government on its apparent violation of his orders to halt certain deportation flights to El Salvador last month. At a Thursday hearingD.C.’s chief federal trial judge, James Boasberg, had a hard time getting answers from DOJ lawyer Drew Ensign about the government’s conduct. Boasberg didn’t say when exactly he’d rule, but we’re awaiting his forthcoming order to see if officials might be held in contempt — and what sort of consequences they might face as a result.

Stepping back, the case stems from Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport immigrants his administration claims are Venezuelan gang members. Separate from the compliance issue pending before Boasberg, the administration asked the Supreme Court to halt the judge’s orders themselves. The high court application was one of several recent filings urging the justices to help Trump implement his agenda, in the face of lower court judges around the country blocking what they’ve determined to be various likely illegal aspects of that agenda.

The justices sided with Trump on Friday on one of those emergency motions, related to his administration’s cancellation of education grants. The court split 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and the three Democratic appointees dissenting. One of the dissents called the majority’s decision to insert itself into the ongoing litigation at this early stage “equal parts unprincipled and unfortunate.”

In nonemergency litigationthe justices wrapped the term’s penultimate two-week argument session, holding hearings on religion and taxesdue process in terrorism lawsuitsand the GOP’s bid to defund Planned Parenthood in a case with Medicaid implications. The court also decided previously argued disputes, siding with the Food and Drug Administration in a case about flavored vapes and with a truck driver fired over a drug test.

Later this month, the justices will hear arguments in more religion-related cases and others before finishing the term’s final rulings. Those usually come by late June but sometimes can go into July. At any rate, lawsuits against Trump’s executive actions should keep the high court busy with emergency litigation.

And don’t forget about the state courts, where Elon Musk’s preferred candidate lost the Wisconsin top court race to Susan Crawford, maintaining the court’s 4-3 liberal majority. Notably, Wisconsin voters on Tuesday also enshrined voter ID requirements, which are typically put forward by conservatives but have bipartisan appeal among voters. And in North Carolina, a GOP-majority ruling from an intermediate appeals court could flip a Democratic state supreme court justice’s victory over a Republican. A Democratic appellate judge dissented from Friday’s panel ruling, writing that if the majority decision to toss out votes stands, “the impact will be to disenfranchise North Carolina voters even though they were eligible to vote on election day.”

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Jordan Rubin

Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined BLN, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.

After President Donald Trump “liberated” Americans from a strong economy Wednesday, the Senate held an extraordinary vote. By 51-48, the chamber passed a privileged resolution authored by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia that would revoke the tariffs Trump imposed on Canada earlier this year. Four Republicans — Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell of KentuckyLisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — voted with every Democrat to rebuke the president’s trade policy.

In practical terms, for now, Kaine’s resolution means little. The president is plowing ahead with his new, far larger tariffs. “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom,” Trump told reporters Thursday, amid the worst day for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq since 2020.

But the Senate vote, one of the first significant legislative losses of Trump’s second term, highlights an opening for Democrats with ramifications beyond even the global economy.

Even before this week, Republicans were already looking to duck votes on Trump’s tariffs.

Most obviously, Trump’s new tariffs create more chances for Democrats in Congress to jam up their GOP counterparts. The president’s handling of the economy already polls poorlyand most Americans are skeptical of his tariff policies in particular. They have good reason to be: The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the price increases from all of Trump’s tariffs are equivalent to “average per household consumer loss of $3,800,” with lower-income households hurt most.

But Republican lawmakers can’t just blame Trump. Though the executive branch typically controls tariff policy nowadays, the Constitution grants Congress the tariff power. Republicans on Capitol Hill may not have initiated a trade war with the penguins of Heard Islandbut they could end it tomorrow.

Even before this week, Republicans were already looking to duck votes on Trump’s tariffs. The funding bill Congress passed last month included a provision preventing a vote on ending the emergency Trump claimed to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

But Republicans won’t be able to avoid these difficult votes entirely. Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., is exploring a “discharge petition” to force a vote on Kaine’s resolution in the House. Kaine himself plans a similar vote regarding the tariffs Trump announced Wednesday. Most significantly, on Thursday Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa joined with Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington to introduce a bill to require the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of imposing new tariffs. Congress would have to ratify the new tariffs within 60 days, or they would expire. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he would vote for the billbecoming the sixth Republican to break with Trump’s tariff policy. Even Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he was against imposing “high tariffs in perpetuity.”

For Democrats, these votes are win-win situations. The more Republicans block these bills, the easier it is for Democratic challengers to hang those votes around GOP necks next fall. On the other hand, if these votes can make GOP defections from Trump even a little regular, that will complicate Republican policymaking enormously.

Trump’s clout keeps the wheels of Republican lawmaking turning.

Since Trump’s inauguration, two factors have controlled the execution of Republicans’ legislative agenda. First, their narrow majorities in the House and the Senate require near-unanimous support. Just this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson attempted to block a bill from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., that would allow proxy voting for new parents in Congress. Only seven other Republicans joined Luna in opposing Johnson’s move. But that was enough, combined with all 213 Democrats, to defeat the speaker (who immediately and huffily sent the House home early for the week).

As with Kaine’s resolution, Johnson’s loss was largely symbolic. For the GOP to avoid more significant defeats, however, every faction of the party must be on board with bills before they reach the floor. Getting near-universal buy-in is a time-consuming process, and it threatens to grind the bill-writing to halt. So far, though, those delays have been minimal, because of the second factor: Trump currently can command GOP unanimity on demand.

Ahead of multiple crucial votes this year, individual Republicans’ qualms have vanished under pressure from the president. Even before Inauguration Day, Trump headed off a far-right rebellion that could have delayed or even prevented Johnson’s re-election as speaker. In the lead-up to last month’s government funding bill, he persuaded the Freedom Caucus to back the legislation with far smaller cuts than the right-wing group has demanded in the past. Most recently, several Senate Republicans held up a budget resolution in hope of demanding bigger spending cuts. “But a meeting with Trump Wednesday morning,” reported Punchbowl News“changed everything. Suddenly, deficit hawks were warming to the plan. [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune and other Republicans attributed the difference to Trump.”

In short, Trump’s clout keeps the wheels of Republican lawmaking turning. If his grip weakens even slightly, Johnson and Thune can’t rely as easily on Trump’s bully pulpit to smooth over intraparty disputes. Longer negotiations mean fewer bills and less damage the GOP majority can cause the country.

“The most important economic question right now,” former Council of Economic Advisers chair Jared Bernstein wrote Thursdayis “will [Trump] back down?” The most important political question, likewise, is: Will Republicans in Congress back down from their complete fealty to Trump?

For now, fear keeps the GOP lawmakers in line — fear of even a single cross word from Trump. Changing that calculus even slightly might just stop the destructive tariffs, save the economy and short-circuit Republicans’ congressional majority in the process.

James Downu

James Downie is a writer and editor for BLN Daily. He was an editor and columnist for The Washington Post and has also written for The New Republic and Foreign Policy.