Bad News for Women's Basketball?
It is not the best thing for the game. It is not the best thing for anything. The number two ranked team beat number one by a score of 61-35. And it was not nearly that close.
The UConn women beat Stanford and in the process took over the top spot nationally. Baylor is now second and that won't change unless Baylor beats UConn in February. But it was the way in which UConn beat Stanford. They led 31-13 at the half. Yes that was only 13 points for one of the top teams in women's basketball. A team with an 82 game home winning streak which was snapped.
UConn is too good and Coach Geno Auriemma is without peer as the top coach in the game. It's not like UConn played great. They only shot 37.5 percent from the field. But Stanford only shot 19.3 percent.
So how good is UConn? Or how bad is the rest of the field. Well, this is the deepest UConn team ever and that says a lot. The only real challenger is Baylor with Brittney Griner at center and Kim Mulkey as coach. Stanford did beat an injury depleted Baylor earlier in the season. Duke is still undefeated but they have as much of a chance of beating UConn in January as the man in the moon. Notre Dame is very good and is at UConn Saturday. They spread the court well and head coach Muffet McGraw has had some success against UConn, especially of late. They simply don't have the talent inside to compete.
So what is wrong with the rest of the country? Traditional powers like LSU, UCLA and Rutgers are simply pretenders and there are plenty of pretenders nationally. Having the best players and the best coach is a huge advantage in women's basketball and that is true of UConn this year. It is also true of Baylor and the presumptive National Championship on April 9 in New Orleans should be a good one. The problem is that the hundreds of other games during the season may be virtually meaningless.
