2009 UConn women: Greatest college team ever?

But again -- remember this -- The UConn team in 2002 beat teams by an average of almost 36 points per game. This team only beat teams by an average of 30.5 or so.

 

You also have to consider the immense gap in the level of competition. The difference between the best women's team and No. 64 is a million miles.

 

I do think more parity came to the men's game when the number of scholarships was dropped from 15 to 13. There is a trickle-down effect.

The same would happen if the women's game would drop to 13. Won't happen, of course.

 

Fixed

 

Kelser would be an 8th man on most top-20 teams today. Goran Suton would lap Jay Vincent twice if they took four laps of the court.

 

Mills averaged 10 points in the NBA, in a career that ended in 2001. What percentage of players on Top 20 teams this year are going to ever play in the NBA? What percentage of guys would average 10 points in their career? Mills would be much more than a marginal starter in today's game.

I can't believe I just defended Terry Mills.

 

Also, the premiere women's players stay for all four years. UConn or Tennessee gets a superstar, they don't bolt for the WNBA as sophomores. Yet, anyways.

Twelve scholarships would be ample, juust as 75-80 would be fine for football. Spread the other three out among the other women's programs (and spread the other 7-10 that should be cut from football out among the other men's programs).

 

I also agree.

 

Maybe there should be a "waiver wire" provision in transfer rules stating that if you don't average a certain minimal amount of PT over the course of a season (something like 5 minutes per game, no more than 1/4 of the season can be DNP-CDs), you can transfer with immediate eligibility.

That would be a big disincentive for coaches to "stash" players on the roster with no intention of playing them -- just to keep them away from the competition.

 

Zag's right here--the '02 team was even better than this year's version. Perhaps the competition in women's basketball is better now than then, but the '02 team's margins of victory were out of this world.

As far as next year's team goes, they're losing Renee Montgomery, but everyone else returns.

 

I was just going to post that. They may be better next year than this year. It'll be awfully difficult for them to prove that, though. This set beat the then-No. 2 team in the country by 30.

Maybe the only thing for them to do, and perhaps they should do it, is to simply get all the patsies off the schedule. No games against Rhode Island (91-43 this year), or Hartford (78-41), or Northern Colorado (85-40) or Holy Cross (96-37). Get this year's final Top 25, and schedule as many of them as you can. What the hell good does it do Hartford or UConn to play that game?