USA Today's Aunt Bea: Combine the two NCAA basketball tournaments

It's not the job of the national media and TV to create interest in a product. MMA created it's own interest and has forced the hand of papers, websites and television stations. If/When the product can hold its own, it will.

 

Why would any of the national media be inclined to provide more coverage of the women's game during the regular season? With the exception of Storrs, Conn., Knoxville, Piscataway, N.J., and a handful of other places, no one cares. No one.

 

Let's clear one thing up right now.

Aunt BEE

 

Here's my question: Why hasn't it caught on?

If you enjoy basketball, you can still appreciate the game's intricacies -- the matchups, adjustments, etc. -- watching the women.

I mean, it can't be all about the lack of dunks. Can it?

 

Everyone says the two games are completely different, and while I would have agreed maybe 10 years ago, the changing style of basketball is starting to have an effect on the women's game as well. No, they don't dunk - at least, maybe 10 in the Division I ranks can, and I think three that are active actually have - and no, they don't play overly physical, but the players are just as athletic as many of the men's basketball players.

Not to mention, I've found that many of the women's basketball players have much more interesting stories than the men's players. Whereas the men are usually larger than life and have some variation of the same backstory, a lot of the women are legitimately going to college for an education, have outside special talents they're winning to share and, typically, are much more personable.

So no, it's not all about the lack of dunks. Why hasn't it caught on? When more athletic departments take it more seriously, fund the program and find good coaches - there are several - then teams will get better. That's how it will grow and become more popular.

 

1) The lack of competitive depth in Division I is one annoying aspect.
2) Another is that people like Aunt Bee seem to think Title IX applies to newspapers, television and fans' wallets.
3) Thirdly, women's sports have to always be cast as a referendum on gender and empowerment of the athletes instead of just being about the games.

 

Don't give a rip about either one.

Column was a shocker. Not.

 

It's not so much the lack of dunking. It's that in general, they can't jump, they're slow and they have awful form on their jump shots. (Again, this is generally speaking. I know there are individual exceptions.) Compared to the men, the women seem like they're playing underwater, or in mud or something.

 

The thinking that the papers at the men's Final Four will have to cover the women's Final Four if they're at the same site is incredibly flawed. Newspapers have only so much space, and it's their job to devote that space to the things that interest their readers most.

As was said above, it is not the newspaper's job to generate the interest.

Take Sunday at the Final Four for instance. Will papers send extra reporters? Not with today's budgets. So you are then thinking that someone will spend hours and hours working on an off-day feature previewing the men's championship game and then cover the women's game or games?

If that's what you think, Aunt Bee and Ms. Shalala, you're delusional.

 

No one cares about college hockey!