As it turned out, Kim Mulkey neednโt have worried. The NCAA was able to to continue COVID-19 testing right to the end and finish a safe, successful tournament and Final Four in San Antonio, crowning Stanford the national champ in a game that went down to the wire.
Safe, because none of the games games throughout the tournament was postponed, and successful on many fronts.
The games were competitive, intense, high-level and the results were not predictable. UConn, 14-point favorites, for whatever thatโs worth, lost to Arizona in the semifinals. The UConn-Iowa game generated tremendous buzz with the star power of freshmen Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark. The UConn-Baylor and Stanford-South-Carolina games were instant classics. There were controversial calls that had people talking, caring.
Television viewership, which can trigger so many positive ripple effects, was up significantly, 11 percent over 2019, the audience for UConn-Arizona peaking at over 3.3 million.
And as all this was getting our attention, Oregonโs Sedona Prince alerted the world to the tournament we wouldnโt necessarily have seen on the pregame shows, the gender inequities in facilities and food, less reliable antigen COVID-19 testing vs. swab testing, and that led to the discussion of logos, marketing and why โMarch Madnessโ has for too long been a alliteration that only applied to the menโs tournament.
Womenโs basketball has made many breakthroughs across the years. Some of us are old enough to remember when the first undefeated UConn team of 1995 had the nation watching and was expected to spark the kind of progress that is still inexplicably elusive. Many epic games โ UConn-Mississippi State, 2017, comes to mind โ and charismatic stars have come and gone on to the pros these last 26 years. The game continues to grow and get better. There are more good players, more coaches, like Arizonaโs Adia Barnes, building better programs.
But the underbelly issues remain because, in Kiplingโs words, the tumult and shouting dies each year, then the captains and kings depart. We all move on to the Masters, to baseball and football, and, the womenโs game seems to have to start from scratch the following fall.
Letโs not let that happen in 2021. From the NCAA on down to conferences and member schools, to TV executives and media, letโs make sure the gifts of the 2021 NCAA Tournament keep on giving.
Will they?
โWeโll see,โ UConn great and TV basketball analyst Rebecca Lobo told me last week. โThatโs my attitude about it. I am so glad that the conversation is happening. It took a discrepancy in weight rooms or pictures of food on social media to be the catalyst for that. Itโs been a long time coming. What is next yearโs tournament going to look like? What are the budgets between the menโs and womenโs tournament going to look like? That will really show us whether itโs lip service or whether itโs a true commitment.โ
The lip service, weโve seen. NCAA president Mark Emmert said, in his businesslike press conference, that the NCAA โdropped the ballโ and promised to do better. An outside firm with expertise in gender equity and Title IX issues has been brought in to conduct a thorough review. He noted, more than once, that the NCAA has been running menโs championships for 100 years, and womenโs for only 40, so there is a โ60-year head startโ to overcome.
Ummm, come on. That means the NCAA has had 40 years to catch up and, as Emmert said, many of the glaring issues exposed in San Antonio could be โfixed rather easily.โ
So there will be studies and recommendations and committees; arenโt there always? Itโs more about the mindset. Instead of noting that the womenโs tournament doesnโt produce enough revenue, which depends on how you spin the numbers, incidentally, why not start with a determination to market and promote it until it does? Respect your own product, and you attract more to it.
โThereโs no reason at all why those two [Final Four] logos canโt be whatever the womenโs side wants,โ Emmert said. โSo the womenโs staff are part of the NCAA. Theyโre part of my national office. We all work and live in the same building. This is not somebody against the NCAA; itโs part of the NCAA. The March Madness logo can, and if the womenโs committee and the womenโs community wants it used, thereโs no reason why they canโt use it similarly. โFinal Fourโ is used by both, and whether or not one wants to use the logo with a gender identifier is up to the committee, and they can certainly do whatever theyโd like to do with those things. So, yes, Iโm fully committed to doing that.โ
The larger picture breaks off into smaller, lesser-known parts that fall on individual colleges and schools. Geno Auriemma said, during the height of the controversy over Princeโs TikTok post, that he fought 20 years at UConn to get the equity he sought.
โFor a lot of coaches in womenโs sports,โ he said, โnot just womenโs basketball, that work just as hard as any other coach in America, and are successful and are doing an incredible job, and theyโre doing it with the resources that you would say are less than adequate relative to what the men might have. And thatโs at every school.โ
As this tournament went on, the focus naturally and rightfully shifted to the basketball, and terrific basketball it was. Systemic issues like the ones exposed during this March Madness, and weโll take it upon ourselves to apply that term to the womenโs tournament, canโt all be fixed overnight. But they wonโt get fixed without steady pressure and scrutiny, wonโt get fixed if we all forget about that empty โweight roomโ now that a champion has been crowned.
Keep that intensity. The cheering has stopped, but the work must go on.
These are the 2020-21 AP Women's All-America Teams
These are the 2020-21 AP Women's All-America Teams
First Team
UpdatedPaige Bueckers, UConn
Updated
5-11, freshman, Hopkins, Minn., 19.7 ppg, 53.9 fg pct, 6.1 apg, 2.29 steals (28 of 30 first-place votes, 146 points)
Dana Evans, Louisville
Updated
5-6, senior, Gary, Ind., 20 ppg, 43.2 fg pct, 4.2 apg, (25, 140)
Aliyah Boston, South Carolina
Updated
6-5, sophomore, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, 13.69 ppg, 11.7 rpg, 50.2 fg pct, 1.6 apg, 2.9 blocks (21, 127)
Rhyne Howard, Kentucky
Updated
6-2, junior, Cleveland, Tenn., 20.7 ppg, 44.8 fg pct, 3.5 apg, 2.32 steals (16, 117)
NaLyssa Smith, Baylor
Updated
6-2, junior, Converse, Texas, 18.1 ppg, 54.3 fg pct (16, 114)
Second Team
UpdatedElissa Cunane, NC State
Updated
6-5, junior, Summerfield, N.C., 16.8 ppg, 57.0 fg pct (13, 107)
Naz Hillmon, Michigan
Updated
6-2, junior, Cleveland, Ohio, 25.1 ppg, 63.7 fg pct (11, 97)
Aari McDonald, Arizona
Updated
5-7, senior, Fresno, Calif., 19.3 ppg, 38.9 fg pct, 4.5 apg, 2.71 steals (8, 96)
Caitlin Clark, Iowa
Updated
6-0, freshman, West Des Moines, Iowa, 26.7 ppg, 47.0 fg pct, 7.2 apg (3, 70)
Charli Collier, Texas
Updated
6-5, junior, Mont Belvieu, Texas, 20.1 ppg, 51.3 fg pct, 1.2 blocks (3, 58)
Third Team
UpdatedNatasha Mack, Oklahoma State
Updated
6-4, senior, Lufkin, Texas, 19.8 ppg, 12.3 rpg, 53.1 fg pct, 4.1 blocks, 2.04 steals (0, 53)
Ashley Owusu, Maryland
Updated
6-0, sophomore, Woodbridge, Va., 18.3 ppg, 48.5 fg pct, 5.8 apg (0, 44)
Michaela Onyenwere, UCLA
Updated
5-11, senior, Aurora, Colo., 18.7 ppg, 41.8 fg pct (0, 42)
Kiana Williams, Stanford
Updated
5-8, senior, San Antonio, Texas, 14.3 ppg, 42 fg pct (2, 31)
Chelsea Dungee, Arkansas
Updated
5-11, senior, Sapulpa, Okla., 22.2 ppg, 42.7 fg pct, (1, 26)
Honorable Mention:
Updated
Kierstan Bell, Florida Gulf Coast
Katie Benzan (pictured), Maryland
Jakia Brown-Turner, NC State
Rennia Davis, Tennessee
Kysre Gondrezick, West Virginia
Arella Guirantes, Rutgers
Lauren Gustin, BYU
Mackenzie Holmes, Indiana
Cece Hooks, Ohio
Ashley Joens, Iowa State
Haley Jones, Stanford
N'dea Jones, Texas AM
Olivia Nelson-Ododa, UConn
Aisha Shepherd, Virginia Tech
Jill Townsend, Gonzaga
Christyn Williams, UConn
Aaliyah Wilson, Texas A&M
Jen Wirth, Gonzaga
