Hoosier Hospitality: My Trip to the Women's Final Four in Indianapolis
Four Discoveries of the Trip........
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1) Standford's Pep Band Rocks
They are simply dynamite. Rocking and rolling the whole game through. These kids had fun on Sunday despite the Cardinal's loss to Texas A&M. Filled the whole of Canseco Fieldhouse with energy and sound. Great job, guys!
2) Texas A&Ms Tyra White = Arkansas' Scotty Thurman circa '94
White hit the 3 that cinched the Championship for A&M on Tuesday night, a shot eerily similar to one that Thurman hit for Arkansas in 1994 to beat Duke: way out in the corner with the shot clock running down. Great play by White to get her name into the history books.
3) Maya Moore = UCLA's Bill Walton in '74
Bill Walton may have been the greatest male college basketball player of all time, and was responsible for leading UCLA to a record setting 88 game win streak. But he lost his final college game with the Bruins in the 1974 Final Four National Semifinals to David Thompson's NC State, eventual national champions.
Maya Moore almost unquestionably is the finest women's player ever in the college game, and helped UConn win a women's record 91 straight games, but she lost her last game.
Maybe I overthink these kinds of things, but I do look at history and see where we can view parallels between today and yesterday.
4) The Women's Game is just not nearly as popular as the men, and never will be.
On Monday night the men played in front of 70k folks in Houston. Tuesday night the women competed in front of 17k fans and 3k empty seats at Canseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. It's painfully obvious that the women's game lags way, way behind the men's game in national interest, no matter how much ESPN wants us to pay attention.
I am a serious hoops junkie and would watch the women's tourney no matter what, but other folks, the regular sports fans, just don't care. I don't know why.
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1) Standford's Pep Band Rocks
They are simply dynamite. Rocking and rolling the whole game through. These kids had fun on Sunday despite the Cardinal's loss to Texas A&M. Filled the whole of Canseco Fieldhouse with energy and sound. Great job, guys!
2) Texas A&Ms Tyra White = Arkansas' Scotty Thurman circa '94
White hit the 3 that cinched the Championship for A&M on Tuesday night, a shot eerily similar to one that Thurman hit for Arkansas in 1994 to beat Duke: way out in the corner with the shot clock running down. Great play by White to get her name into the history books.
3) Maya Moore = UCLA's Bill Walton in '74
Bill Walton may have been the greatest male college basketball player of all time, and was responsible for leading UCLA to a record setting 88 game win streak. But he lost his final college game with the Bruins in the 1974 Final Four National Semifinals to David Thompson's NC State, eventual national champions.
Maya Moore almost unquestionably is the finest women's player ever in the college game, and helped UConn win a women's record 91 straight games, but she lost her last game.
Maybe I overthink these kinds of things, but I do look at history and see where we can view parallels between today and yesterday.
4) The Women's Game is just not nearly as popular as the men, and never will be.
On Monday night the men played in front of 70k folks in Houston. Tuesday night the women competed in front of 17k fans and 3k empty seats at Canseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. It's painfully obvious that the women's game lags way, way behind the men's game in national interest, no matter how much ESPN wants us to pay attention.
I am a serious hoops junkie and would watch the women's tourney no matter what, but other folks, the regular sports fans, just don't care. I don't know why.
posted by joe sweeney at 3:33 AM
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