Friday night’s NCAA Women’s Final Four games were the best pair National Semifinals game of all time, men or women.
PLOT TWIST: Women’s college basketball in general owns the men’s game and it is past time to recognize it.
After only losing three games in five seasons, including a 111 game win streak during that span, the debate throughout every college basketball season on the women’s side has been “is UConn bad for the game?”
In essence, the truth is in the complete opposite; we paid attention to women’s basketball because of UConn’s dominance and success. Even during the time of the late great Pat Summitt’s nearly untouchable success, no one paid attention to the women’s game.
Now in 2018, after rule changes and the most dominant program in the country not even making it to Championship Sunday for two years in a row, it’s time to admit: on the college level of basketball, the men have some catching up to do.
Rule changes
In 2015, NCAA women’s basketball switched from playing two 20-minute halves to four 10-minute quarters to increase the flow of the game. The move could not have been anymore successful. The change includes one media timeout per quarter and teams shoot two free throws after five team fouls, fouls reset at the end of each quarter.
If not the switch to playing four quarters, the biggest rule change to the women’s game is the ability to advance the ball after a timeout. During the last-minute of the fourth quarter and during overtime, a team may advance the ball into the frontcourt after securing the possession of the ball immediately after a timeout. The rules committee stated that the change was made to “add more excitement to offensive possessions at the end of games.
Without this amendment, UConn quite possibly loses in regulation and doesn’t get to touch the ball again without the Fighting Irish putting up more points; already up by 2 with 15 seconds left.
The women’s colllege game is so much further advanced than the men’s game. Advancing the ball after TOs & quarters. Sad that our game can’t catch up.
— Jay Williams (@RealJayWilliams) March 31, 2018
Competition parity
“UConn is bad for women’s basketball.” “Who wants to watch a game when you already know who’s going to win?” The answer is simple, you. Everyone watches when UConn is playing, even if you don’t watch any other women’s basketball game or team, the Huskies attract viewers.
Was Mike Tyson bad for boxing? No, in fact fans enjoyed watching them perform so much you paid your hard earned money to watch a fight that many times was over in the first 60 seconds.
Are the Warriors bad for the NBA? Instead of answering, just let me know if you’ll watch the NBA Finals this June if they make their fourth consecutive appearance.
Women’s college basketball is guaranteed their third different National Champion in as many years on Sunday night. The Villanova Wildcats have an opportunity to win their second National Championship in three years Monday night.
Watching women’s basketball is often frowned upon because there is no dunking and it’s considered boring. On the contrary, the women have made up for not being as physically gifted by mastering the true keys to basketball. Running plays to perfection, executing the ins and outs of the fundamentals of the game of basketball. Truly enjoying the sport of basketball, especially on the college level, is enjoying women’s basketball.
