Belmont vs. Indiana today. Our family has ties to both schools. Big.

(03-24-2021 11:37 AM)stever20 Wrote:  It's been weird with women's hoops. Yeah had some big school teams.... But also had a lot of smaller programs doing exceptionally well historically.

One of note to me is Louisiana Tech. They won two NCAA women's basketball championships in 1982 and 1988. But then LaTech joined the WAC and they played a ton of teams on the West Coast. The team gradually declined and is now irrelevant in women's basketball even though they are in the more geographically friendly Conference USA. Do you think it's a coincidence that once they joined the WAC that they declined? I feared the same thing happened to UConn once they got stuck in the AAC. The Big East might be better and the travel a lot better but it's still nowhere near a major conference. It's a lot easier to recruit top talent to the old Big East than to the AAC (or the new Big East).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_...basketball

(03-24-2021 01:14 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(03-24-2021 11:37 AM)stever20 Wrote:  It's been weird with women's hoops. Yeah had some big school teams.... But also had a lot of smaller programs doing exceptionally well historically.

One of note to me is Louisiana Tech. They won two NCAA women's basketball championships in 1982 and 1988. But then LaTech joined the WAC and they played a ton of teams on the West Coast. The team gradually declined and is now irrelevant in women's basketball even though they are in the more geographically friendly Conference USA. Do you think it's a coincidence that once they joined the WAC that they declined? I feared the same thing happened to UConn once they got stuck in the AAC. The Big East might be better and the travel a lot better but it's still nowhere near a major conference. It's a lot easier to recruit top talent to the old Big East than to the AAC (or the new Big East).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_...basketball

Louisiana Tech also won the 1981 AIAW National Championship, the last before the NCAA started sponsoring women's sports.
ODU used to be a power as well, as did Immaculata, Delta State and Cheney State

What happened was once the NCAA started sponsoring it, and with Title IX, the big powers beyond UCLA/Tennessee and Rutgers started taking it seriously and spending money on coaches and facilities.

A school like LTU just couldn't keep up.

Wasn't just La Tech. Old Dominion of course was dominant as well.

What is crazy- the women have never had a 2/15 upset, but had a 1/16 upset 23 years ago when Harvard upset Stanford.

The women's vs. men's angle? It gets worse!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nc...976714002/

In her Twitter post, Georgia Tech caoch Nell Fortner talks about "game floors that hardly tell anyone that it's the NCAA Tournament".

In the second round of this NCAA Tournament, there are 16 games played, eight yesterday and eight today. Eight were/are being played at the Alamadome in San Antonio, four each day.

Four (including the game Georgia Tech played in) are being played at the Convocation Center on the campus of University of Texas at San Antonio. The arena seats just 4,080. Assuming capacity restrictions, the actual capacity at those games would be lower than that but it's Texas so they would probably have less restrictions than Indiana. The smallest first round facility for the men's tournament was Indiana Farmers' Coliseum which seats 6,800 for basketball.

The other four games? An arena called "Bill Greehey Arena". It's on the campus of St. Mary's University. No, not the one in the WCC. St. Mary's University in Texas. They're a Division TWO school!

https://rattlerathletics.com/facilities/...ey-arena/1

Yes. The NCAA Division ONE Women's Basketball Tournament games were being held in a Division TWO arena! Georgia Tech's first round game was held in Bill Greehey Arena. One of the four games at Bill Greehey Arena yesterday featured 2018 national champion Baylor! I do realize it's tough with COVID-19 but the NCAA couldn't do any better than a freaking Division 2 arena????? I mean, send them to Houston or Dallas or something. This is ridiculous! UTSA's arena seems small as well but at least that's a Division 1 Arena.

On the LaTech theme, Tennessee Tech used to have a rather strong women's program.

(03-24-2021 07:01 AM)schmolik Wrote:  Glad to see there is some discussion about the women's game here.

I won't lie that my main interest in the women's game is Paige Bueckers is blond. I know she's young enough to be my daughter but I find her cute. I will say she is probably the most talked about player in women's basketball this season although it's probably not because she's blond (although it won't hurt her popularity). Also after the disaster of the men's tournament for the most part, it's good to have another tournament to watch.

One of the biggest stories from the women's tournament before it started was the inequality between the men's tournament and women's tournament this year. They were able to compare it more right from the start with both conferences in bubble environments. Several coaches including UConn's Geno Auriemma and South Carolina's Dawn Staley (the 2017 national champions) were up in arms and rightfully so. The NCAA apologized for the differences.

https://www.espn.com/womens-college-bask...facilities

I purposely say "men's" basketball frequently at the board because saying basketball by itself and having it imply the men's game is disrespectful to the women (and I graduated from two schools with irrelevant women's programs right now and in Philly Villanova's women's team is respectable but is irrelevant compared to the men's program). But certainly there are schools where the women's team is far superior to the men's team, including at Connecticut (and the men's team has won four national championships since 1999 and made the NCAA Tournament this year). No doubt the men's tournament is more popular and makes more money but women's basketball has to be the most popular college women's sport in the country.

UConn was the team in 1995 that put the women's game on the map when Rebecca Lobo went undefeated and won the national championship. The next year she made the Olympics team and they made headlines, winning the gold medal. The following year, the WNBA was born. I've been to at least one WNBA game at Madison Square Garden before and I saw Connecticut play in the NCAA Tournament in Trenton. I remember seeing several Illinois women's games when I was a student (they sucked but the games were cheap). UConn hasn't won the national championship since 2016, they are the team women's basketball probably needs to put them back on the map, get a team the Northeast can get behind. Hopefully once the pandemic is behind us I can watch Paige when they come to Villanova or maybe the NCAA comes closer to Philly (or who knows, maybe I'd go up to Connecticut, it's not that far away).

I've plugged UConn to the ACC and with the story about the men's vs. women's tournament it further angers me that one of the best if not the best women's teams in the country has to settle for being in a "second tier" conference. The ACC in women's basketball had 8 teams in this years field including #1 seed NC State and #2 seed Louisville. The Big East had 2 teams, the only other team being #10 seed Marquette who lost in the first round. How can women's basketball grow when one of its best teams is basically a "mid major"? True, Gonzaga is "left out" in men's basketball. But should Connecticut really be left out? And it's not like their men's team is that bad.

After watching yesterday's UConn game, the ESPN announcers were plugging the upcoming Sweet 16 game and head to head matchup between Paige Bueckers and Iowa freshman Caitlin Clark, who is tied for the nation in points per game with 26.5.

And look at this-

Bill Greehey Arena seats 3,800

(03-24-2021 04:53 PM)stever20 Wrote:  And look at this-

The NCAA Women's Tournament should really push for the championship game to be on ABC. The 1995 women's championship aired on CBS. The following year they moved to ESPN and have been on ever since. That was back in 1996 before ESPN became more popular. Now in the cord cutting era if you're on cable you're a second class citizen. I feel the move to ESPN cut into the momentum that women's basketball gained after Rebecca Lobo and the 1995 UConn team.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NC...oadcasters

(03-24-2021 02:02 PM)stever20 Wrote:  Wasn't just La Tech. Old Dominion of course was dominant as well.

What is crazy- the women have never had a 2/15 upset, but had a 1/16 upset 23 years ago when Harvard upset Stanford.

According to Wikipedia, there's never been a 3/14 upset either.

In the men's tournament, 1 1/16 upset, now 9 2/15 upsets but now 22 3/14 upsets.

This FanPost only includes 1985-2019 tournament data:
https://www.bloggingthebracket.com/2021/...ce-by-seed

I see Indiana is pounding Belmont.

(03-24-2021 05:25 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(03-24-2021 02:02 PM)stever20 Wrote:  Wasn't just La Tech. Old Dominion of course was dominant as well.

What is crazy- the women have never had a 2/15 upset, but had a 1/16 upset 23 years ago when Harvard upset Stanford.

According to Wikipedia, there's never been a 3/14 upset either.

In the men's tournament, 1 1/16 upset, now 9 2/15 upsets but now 22 3/14 upsets.

This FanPost only includes 1985-2019 tournament data:
https://www.bloggingthebracket.com/2021/...ce-by-seed

For the women, there was no seed higher than 10 until 1994 when they expanded from 40 to 64

For the men, the field expanded to 64 in 1985, which is probably why he used that date - prior to that there was a combination of byes and play-in games - one set of #11 seeds and 4 sets of #12 seeds

(03-24-2021 01:21 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(03-24-2021 01:14 PM)schmolik Wrote:  

(03-24-2021 11:37 AM)stever20 Wrote:  It's been weird with women's hoops. Yeah had some big school teams.... But also had a lot of smaller programs doing exceptionally well historically.

One of note to me is Louisiana Tech. They won two NCAA women's basketball championships in 1982 and 1988. But then LaTech joined the WAC and they played a ton of teams on the West Coast. The team gradually declined and is now irrelevant in women's basketball even though they are in the more geographically friendly Conference USA. Do you think it's a coincidence that once they joined the WAC that they declined? I feared the same thing happened to UConn once they got stuck in the AAC. The Big East might be better and the travel a lot better but it's still nowhere near a major conference. It's a lot easier to recruit top talent to the old Big East than to the AAC (or the new Big East).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_...basketball

Louisiana Tech also won the 1981 AIAW National Championship, the last before the NCAA started sponsoring women's sports.
ODU used to be a power as well, as did Immaculata, Delta State and Cheney State

What happened was once the NCAA started sponsoring it, and with Title IX, the big powers beyond UCLA/Tennessee and Rutgers started taking it seriously and spending money on coaches and facilities.

A school like LTU just couldn't keep up.

Tennessee and Texas were early big-time athletic programs that had strong women's basketball, but you're right, most of the rest of them generally paid it lips service. Title IX, and also the facilities arms race at the higher levels that benefited the women even if they weren't the target, helped push the top men's basketball schools into also being some of the top women's schools. ODU put a few quarters in the parking meter with an international-heavy roster, but the big programs got wise to that too.

(03-24-2021 02:02 PM)stever20 Wrote:  Wasn't just La Tech. Old Dominion of course was dominant as well.

What is crazy- the women have never had a 2/15 upset, but had a 1/16 upset 23 years ago when Harvard upset Stanford.

Agreed. Nothing to do with conference. Simply bigger schools taking it seriously. ODU and LT have declined. Texas was dominant but is now just above average.

Story about a Sweet 16 women's player and a Sweet 16 men's player dating. Both are from Latvia. She plays for Texas A&M, he plays for Oral Roberts.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nc...974650002/

I know you're sick of hearing about my girl but I just figured out that next year's Final Four is going to be in Minneapolis and guess where's she's from!

https://www.fox9.com/sports/ncaa-2022-wo...get-center

If UConn makes next year's Final Four, it could be the biggest home court advantage in Women's Final Four history.

Oh and if you're not sick of hearing about her, here's another article:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nc...971618002/

how about ABC having womens DH both Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday:
Iowa/UConn 1pm (mens starts at 240)
Michigan/Baylor 3pm
Sunday:
Ga Tech/South Carolina 1pm(mens starts at 210)
Missouri St/Stanford 3pm

(03-25-2021 05:49 AM)schmolik Wrote:  Story about a Sweet 16 women's player and a Sweet 16 men's player dating. Both are from Latvia. She plays for Texas A&M, he plays for Oral Roberts.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nc...974650002/

My brother-in-law is first-generation Latvian-American. I'm going to read this article.

I'm in the 93rd percentile in ESPN's Women's Tournament Challenge!

https://fantasy.espn.com/tournament-chal...ID=1643265

I picked 12 of the Sweet 16, successfully picking four teams below 4 seeds to make the Sweet 16 including two #6 seeds, Texas and Oregon.

I have all #1's and #2's in the Elite 8 so no originality there. I did pick two #2's to make the Final Four, Maryland (of course I'm going Big Ten!) and Texas A&M. I had Stanford getting to the final and losing to duh!

Some early TV numbers for the women's tournament:

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2021/03...tling-ufc/

Because of national TV coverage for the first time, they didn't want to compare ratings to the last tournament. They did have ratings for the two ABC games and the best game so far was UConn's 2nd round game vs. Syracuse.