hoops players in college? What is it about women's collegiate sports that lends itself to all these dynasties (UT basketball, UNC soccer, UConn hoops, UCLA softball(?))?
Is it just a lack of overall talent in these sports, so if one team can grab up all of the solid players, BAM, they're a dynasty?
Or is this a situation where skill actually matters more? That is, in men's sports, skill can often be neutralized by pure athleticism; whereas the ladies don't normally have that luxury. Thus, the more skilled teams in women's hoops tend to win out and their tournament is relatively sucky (that, and the fact that a 1 seed may have to play on a 9 seeds home floor in the second round).
Addendum: apparently, UCONN is the first hoops program (men or women) to beat every team ON ITS ENTIRE SCHEDULE by 10 or more points!
5 comments:
Are you watching sports center also ???
I JUST saw that stat about the double digits.
Nope, read it on Deadspin or one of the other random websites I'm visiting these days.
It's two factors.
1.) Length of time women's sports have been sanctioned by the NCAA. (approx 35 years). Men's sports, well over 90. Using that football and basketball in the 40's, 50's, and 60's had many dynasty's, OU, Notre Dame, Army in football. UCLA in basketball.
2.) More importantly the number of scholarships for women's sports is far less than men's sports because women's sports don't make money, except for at UConn, UT, etc. Therefore those programs have enough cash to provide full scholarships. Summitt and Auriemma being great coaches helps as well.
The reason men's sports have more parity these days, especially football, is because the number of allowable scholarships have been reduced. From the 50's to the 90's schools were allowed well over 100 scholarships, so programs that made money or were all alone in their own state (public schools) would hoard players. ex: Nebraska. Since they reduced scholarship counts to 85 per team, good players that would normally go to a big time school are now going to USF, Utah, Cincinnati, and even WF.
. . . and with the one and done, etc. Players like Hansbrough get a free card to greatness simply because the better players aren't there to put the history right.
And it's not just hating Carolina on principle of their unrelated fan base - UNC fans in fucking detroit?
In the men's game, the talent is better, but not around long. So it's hard for a team to really roll as it can't count on the highly recruited player to lay it out there every game for four years.
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