Lynx GM talks Final Four, Minnesota basketball and the WNBA draft

Friday night there will be millions of viewers glued to screens to watch an epic basketball match-up: UConn versus Iowa in the NCAA Women’s Final Four. Tickets are going for well over $2,000 on the resale market to see record breaker Caitlin Clark against Minnesota’s own Paige Bueckers.

The appetizer for the Iowa-UConn game is a highly anticipated matchup between North Carolina State University and undefeated University of South Carolina, which features Tessa Johnson, a freshman with ties to Albertville. 

The women’s game is the biggest thing in sports right now and Minnesota Lynx General Manager Clare Duwelius spoke about it with Morning Edition Host Cathy Wurzer. 

Hear the conversation using the audio player above, or read a transcript of it below. It has been lightly edited for clarity. 

You’re in Cleveland, along with Coach Cheryl Reeve and other Lynx staffers. What’s the level of excitement there? 

The city is really buzzing, and it’s all centered on women’s basketball, fortunately for us. And our crew and a lot of other league personnel are running around the city and kind of networking and just taking it all in. There’s a lot of events going on, but obviously the main event are the games tonight and Sunday, so we can’t wait to see the basketball. The product is going to be great tonight. So we’re just really excited.

Folks like you and Coach Reeve have been in this business for a while. Did you in your wildest dreams see attention like this coming? 

I think for those of us that have been in the game for a long time, it was definitely not outside of reach. I think the bigger issue is we’re kind of now starting to get the media attention and coverage and, and those sorts of things that the game and the players have always deserved. We’ve had a great product for many years. Now it’s just great that others are kind of jumping along and enjoying what we’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy for, you know, decades. And the product isn’t dropping off after this year. And so that’s the really exciting thing as well.  

So you think the momentum is sustainable? 

Absolutely. Yeah. The freshmen even that you’re hearing a lot of buzz around — as well as Caitlin and Paige and a lot of others that are going to be going pro very soon, if not this year — you know, names like Hannah Hidalgo and JuJu Watkins, they’re going to kind of buoy this thing for many years to come and they’ll just keep getting better. So absolutely.

All eyes will be on that UConn vs. Iowa game, but I wanted to mention South Carolina and Tessa Johnson from Albertville. Tessa and…