Appointment viewing

 The TV show you want to park yourself in front of tonight begins sometime after 9 p.m., and it's not A Very Special Episode of "Different Strokes." It's a women's basketball game.

Iowa vs. South Carolina. 30-6 vs. 36-0. Caitlin Clark vs. Aliyah Boston.

Some folks are saying this is the Bird-Magic, Indiana State-Michigan State moment for women's college buckets, and it's hard to argue with them. That showdown in the men's Final Four in Salt Lake City 44 years ago was the origin story for March Madness, and it was the origin story for the modern NBA, too. Bird-vs.-Magic in '79 became Bird-vs.-Magic in the NBA for the next decade, and, with a big assist from MJ, the commercial behemoth of the LeBron-Steph-Luka-Giannis Association came squalling into the world as a result.

No one's predicting that will happen in the WNBA with Caitlin-vs.-Aliyah, because the WNBA is not the scandal-scarred NBA of the late 1970s. It's created its own legends -- Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Lisa Leslie, Elena Delle Donne, on and on -- and thus Caitlin-vs.-Aliyah will only add one more layer to that.

But tonight will be its own historical marker, and it's hard not to see the parallels to '79. As with Bird and Magic, Clark and Boston have been the best players this March, mirroring their lineal descendants.

Clark, brash and cocky and preternaturally gifted, has been the player of the tournament so far, as much for her swagger as the way she's carried an Iowa team that wasn't even the best team in its conference. She's coming off a monster 41-point, 12-assist, 10-rebound triple-double that carried the Hawkeyes past Louisville in the Elite Eight - a game that drew bigger TV numbers than any NBA game this season.

(Acknowledging, of course, that the NBA plays 10,000 games a season and no set of eyeballs can keep up with that endless slog.)

Boston, meanwhile ...

Well, all she's done is be the straw that stirs the drink for the undefeated Gamecocks, who are looking to be the first women's team since UConn eight years ago to run the table. Only nine teams have ever gone unbeaten in the modern history of the women's game.

Boston went for 22 points, 10 boards and five assists in the Gamecocks 86-75 win over Maryland in the Elite Eight, a fairly typical night for her. Like Magic in '79, she has more help than Clark does or Bird did. The Blob's guess is the analogy will therefore hold: South Carolina wins despite another lights-out game from Clark. 

And America, as it did Sunday, will watch as never before.