Those of you who regularly read A Dime Back (Hi, Mom!) know we don’t spend much time writing about the UConn Women’s team. And, honestly, I’m a little ashamed of that. I’m a feminist, a former female athlete, and the daughter of a Title IX pioneer. This should be right in my wheelhouse.
I grew up on Rebecca Lobo and Jen Rizzotti. I went to countless games with my best friend growing up (back when season ticket seats were unassigned and first-come-first-served), and the 1995 National Championship run is one of my very favorite sports moments.
But Monday night I watched the game in a bar with a roomful of insane UConn fans living and dying with each shot. Tuesday I watched at a friend’s place, with a roomful of people who weren’t at all worried about the outcome. (Except one. Sorry, Teubner. Notre Dame is still a really good school. Just not at basketball.)
So why the dichotomy? The UConn women are so good, so dominant, that even a National Championship game is just a ho hum experience. I was texting earlier in the day with a friend who was predicting a 30 point win, only as slight hyperbole. And he wasn’t far off. The Huskies dispatched the Fighting Irish in frighteningly efficient fashion, winning by a convincing 21 points. And that included taking out the starters and letting the walk-ons finish the game. In the National Championship. Against an undefeated team. Think about that for a second.
Notre Dame Coach Muffet McGraw said at times it felt like they were playing the Miami Heat. Former Baylor star and athletic freak of nature Brittney Griner said playing UConn is like playing a WNBA team. The Huskies’ preparation, work ethic and ability to play at a high level even when they’re playing the cupcakiest of cupcake teams make them almost otherworldly.
My parents watch the women as religiously as the men. In fact, my dad prefers to watch the women’s games because he finds the men’s games too stressful. And really, when was the last time the women gave us anything to worry about? They’ve basically won the game before they walked out onto the floor.
This isn’t to say I don’t pay attention to the women’s team. I do. When they play any team that might give them a game I watch. I always have an eye on the score when they’re playing. My friends were sort of teasing me about how much I knew about the team. (Really, guys? C’mon. I live in UConn homer land.) But, admittedly, it’s not as much fun to watch them blow out Boston University by 58 points (No, that’s not a typo.) as it is to watch the men go into OT against Memphis. Though, to be fair, I’ll take the 40 points wins of the women’s team over the men’s 33-point loss to Louisville any day of the week and twice on Sunday. That game was painful.
As Peter pointed out earlier this season, blow-out games are, well, boring. I don’t know what Geno does to get his team to play the way they do. It absolutely defies logic. It’s not just getting the best players, because Notre Dame and Baylor get great players, too. Something about this program and how he prepares his team is just on a different level than everyone else. Basically, he’s a genius. And I’m so glad he’s ours.
There is also the argument about how different the men’s and women’s games are. The women have a more old-school style of play. My friend described it as having five Bob Cousys on the floor. There are no tomahawk dunks (Though, Stewie, I know you can dunk. Please, for the love of Jonathan, give us some sugar. I would love it forever.) or alley oops. What we do get is precision passing, flawless defense, and an offense run like a Swiss watch.
The women’s game also benefits from the fact that we get all these players for four years. If Stewie played in the men’s game, she would have been a one-and-done. But we get her for four years. If she doesn’t graduate with four national championships on her resume, I’ll wear a Duke shirt in Gampel.
While I have to acknowledge a difference in the level of athleticism, if you watched Stef Dolson muscle up for that lay-up, get fouled and roar like a champion without fist-pumping, well, then you’re not really a sports fan. Because moments like that are what sports are about. Big Momma Stef worked her ass off for four years to get to that moment and win a national championship. Her accomplishment, and Bria Hartley’s and Stewie’s and Moriah Jefferson’s and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis’s, is no less significant than the men’s. In fact, it’s more so. Because they were perfect.
We’re pretty spoiled here in Connecticut. We expect our women to win. Final Fours? Obviously. National Championships? Ours by divine right. But we shouldn’t be blasé about it. Dynasties end. Coaches leave. So while Storrs, Connecticut is the Mecca of College Basketball we should revel in it. Because it won’t be like this forever.
