More Deadly Than the Male

For most guys, there is no good time to watch women play hoops.

If you agree with that, you missed three well-played games last weekend. The NCAA women's Final Four in Indianapolis was very competitive, and the title game was better than the men's. Which isn't saying much.

Texas A&M squeezed Notre Dame out, 76-70, in the final. That was after those teams beat two #1 seeds each to reach Tuesday's game. And two of the bullies on the block were Connecticut and Tennessee.

The big problem with women college teams is that the divide between the haves (UConn, Stanford, Tennessee, about a half-dozen others) and the have-nots (everyone else) has been huge since the ladies' tourney began in 1982.

Some years ago, it was not easy to appreciate Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes or Sue Bird when their college competition didn't always look ready to play. And watching the University of Conneticut's sublime Maya Moore destroy unskilled defenders doesn't show me how good she really is.

That's why I picked up on the women's tourney at its end. The teams are stronger top to bottom. The title game's stars, Skylar Diggins and Danielle Adams, led two teams who can really play.

Let's anticipate a shift. Maybe a female basketball recruit who was only thinking about one of the powerhouses will think about a Notre Dame or an A&M. Maybe the 101-39 scores I always see in women's hoops will start to equalize. While those kind of scores exist, people will know that the game is not competitive yet--that there just isn't a big enough pool of talented players.

In college, I wrote for the school newspaper. One of my beats was the women's basketball team, a team that went undefeated in conference play before getting beat down by Tennessee in a #1-#16 match-up. A few of the male writers on staff would laugh into their hand at me. Like a lot of men, they thought basketball was all about high-flying. They didn't know what I knew.

I knew that a skilled, fundamentally-sound player, no matter the gender, is dangerous. And very fun to watch.

NCAA Basketball Tournament: 'Parity' Is Like Ash In My Mouth

Another March Madness, another busted bracket. I only do one bracket a year, and picked Kansas to whip Villanova in the title game. We're done with the opening two rounds of the 2010 NCAA Tournament, and this is no longer possible. That's a fact. Also a fact: After the first weekend, the most over-used word is parity. "We now have parity." Parity? Where? When did that begin? When Cornell makes the Sweet 16 four of six years--that's when we can say that the playing field is level. Let's see Northern Iowa actually win the title, and then reach the second weekend again in '11. Only then could we claim that there is a true sense of unpredictability. But those things are not going to happen. More than likely, these teams (and the entertaining St. Mary's College) will be replaced by a handful of other upstarts. Every March, we get so excited over the upsets that we get amnesia. Upsets happen every year. Brackets get destroyed quick and in a hurry.

The one recent exception was 2009, where all four #1 seeds made it to the national semifinals. There will never be true parity in major college ball. Although the usual murderer's row didn't appear in the tournament this year--represented by perennial powers like UNC, UCLA, and UConn--do you really doubt that they'll miss again next season? Schools like North Carolina are just on a different level. They have the recruiting network. The money. The boosters and alums. Big-time community support that, in most cases, has been there for over a generation.

You're going to see the same twenty or so universities making the tournament for another generation. There are exceptions to this old-school theory, like a Gonzaga, which has built a winning program in recent memory. But they still aren't part of the upper echelon--they're merely outstanding (so far). They're not Michigan State, or Duke.

Yes: that kind of powerhouse, where a great coach leaving or a losing season are just bumps in the road. Not the beginning of a retreat to obscurity. Remember when that team did good that one year?... This is why I'll always be most enthusiastic for the NBA over college. (Other than the obvious upgrade in play and talent.) At least the pro league doesn't pretend to be something it is not. Its flaws are there for everyone to see. Meanwhile, the NCAA proposes adding thirty-two teams to the Madness, yet pretends that the phrase 'student-athlete' is still written in the correct order.

Come on. Try and convince me.