Whoa there KnightBridge. WBB IS NOT OFTEN THE STEPCHILD. Look at virtually any other women's sport or any non-revenue men's sport at many schools and especially the state schools. WBB is often the "Star" child, given more coaches, academic advisors, Athletic Department Personnel and Student Managers. Look at all the schools and tell me what Women's program has more than the basketball program? The salaries of the coaches among the Women's sports-Basketball FAR OUTPACES all the others. Heck the schools you reference above treat their Swim Team deplorably Seton Hall has 50 Swimmers for both Men's and Women's with 1 Head coach and 2 assistants, Georgetown has 53 Swimmers with 1 Head Coach and 2 assistants and PC has it even worse, 55 swimmers with 1 Head Coach and 1 Assistant. Never mind none have the full compliment of scholarships. BTW, Rutgers cut the Men's team due to Title IX consideration so they wish they were a "stepchild" instead of put up for adoption.
So, while yes, the Memphis women being promised facilities by the AD and then not given them is deplorable, Melissa's behavior was still not good and her salary is 6 times that of the Swim coaches as is the salary for many of the WBB coaches vs. all the other non-revenue sports.
I was referring almost exclusively to facilities. In large part many schools put (and lose) a lot of money in WBB because it is their "star" sport after MBB and Football. That doesn't mean I think it is all well spent, and plenty of schools have proven that, if you sink some money in a niche sport you can be successful there too. Think Volleyball at Nebraska for example. But of course, they are likewise not necessarily money makers.
I don't claim to have the answer about facilities. Seton Hall and Georgetown for example play where they play because the men's team plays in an arena the school doesn't own - and which they could not (and should not) be expected to pay for a poorly attended women's game. But to not sink a few bucks into the facility that the women do play in seems unfair to me as well. Some of them were, at least 10 years ago, dumps, and reportedly locker rooms were often not much either. I know that, "before CVS" the locker room for the women at Rutgers wasn't very nice, while the Men's was much better. This has changed, probably at most schools.
Credit to the U of A, which generally supports its various women's programs very well (and has had respectable success in both its men's and women's programs). Yet, when WBB tanked under Niya Butts they kept her to the end of her contract, and especially since she was underpaid (well, by the standard for WBB coaches) to not make a change and leave the program in the condition it was when Adia took over is almost inexplicable. Especially when they were - 3 years later - willing to fund hosting WNIT games and sell out the arena for the finals, and give Adia a raise.
In the end, there is no good answer. And I'm not out there touting sinking increasing amounts of money into women's programs, or cutting men's programs, or anything else. I am going to stick to my opinion that facilities for some schools are just sub-par, even if for financial reasons it is unavoidable.