Women's College Basketball...

[Jaybird65]

....possibly the most exciting night ever for the sport.... All 4 #1 seeds in the Final 4.... Both games go overtime..... Bummed that we lost but a great night for NCAA Women's Basketball overall..... Congrats to all 4 teams for putting on such a show!!!!

 

[triaddukefan]

They are talking about WCBB on national sports radio right now...... about both of tonight's games..... thats unheard of.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Man I hate parity, though I guess I better get used to it!

 

[jimazee]

....possibly the most exciting night ever for the sport.... All 4 #1 seeds in the Final 4.... Both games go overtime..... Bummed that we lost but a great night for NCAA Women's Basketball overall..... Congrats to all 4 teams for putting on such a show!!!!

Absolutely...and for the bulk of the viewing audience, the games ended perfectly. Best WCBB show ever. A sad ending for the Huskies...again. At least the whining about breaking up UConn should finally end for a while...maybe a long while.

 

[GoUconn7961]

....possibly the most exciting night ever for the sport.... All 4 #1 seeds in the Final 4.... Both games go overtime..... Bummed that we lost but a great night for NCAA Women's Basketball overall..... Congrats to all 4 teams for putting on such a show!!!!

Finally someone w/perspective...

 

[bballnut90]

Best night of women’s college basketball I can remember. Sorry for you fans that it didn’t end the way you had hoped, but wow what a night. A buzzer beater and overtime in game one (and a ridiculous performance by McCowan).

And the ND-UCONN game has to go down as probably the best game ever in women’s basketball history. There hasn’t been a game of this magnitude where it was so back and forth and so many terrific plays were made. UCONN miraculously tying the game up twice, and then the incredible shot by Arike at the end. Simply nuts.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Best night of women’s college basketball I can remember. Sorry for you fans that it didn’t end the way you had hoped, but wow what a night. A buzzer beater and overtime in game one (and a ridiculous performance by McCowan).

And the ND-UCONN game has to go down as probably the best game ever in women’s basketball history. There hasn’t been a game of this magnitude where it was so back and forth and so many terrific plays were made. UCONN miraculously tying the game up twice, and then the incredible shot by Arike at the end. Simply nuts.

You put this game ahead of the great UConn-Tennessee games?

 

[bballnut90]

You put this game ahead of the great UConn-Tennessee games?

Absolutely. What game tops this in terms of excitement? The only ones that come close are 96 Final Four (although it had a lackluster OT), and 2003 at Storrs, but neither of those games had the crazy back and forth like tonight’s game did.

 

[Charliebball]

So with another OT loss in the semi-finals is UConn still bad for women's basketball?

 

[HoopsFan21]

So with another OT loss in the semi-finals is UConn still bad for women's basketball?

It's gonna be another final that no one watches or remembers. That's not a knock on either team, that's just the way sports are when their biggest brand names aren't in the championship games. Later today all the focus will be on the men's semis. Basically the women's semis occurred overnight and might as well have been played in the Australian time zone which is both ironic and sad given the week's recruiting loss.

 

[triaddukefan]

It's gonna be another final that no one watches or remembers. That's not a knock on either team, that's just the way sports are when their biggest brand names aren't in the championship games. Later today all the focus will be on the men's semis. Basically the women's semis occurred overnight and might as well have been played in the Australian time zone which is both ironic and sad given the week's recruiting loss.

Last year's final did pretty good in the ratings..... much much better than the 2016 final

 

[Reypl21]

The 2016 final was a joke, no offense to UConn fans. Syracuse deserved to be there, but who wants to watch any of those games when there is no chance for the games to be competitive like tonight? I didn't watch a full half of any of those games that year. And I consider myself an avid WBB fan. I bet the more "casual" fan tuned in tonight, because the games were competitive. They were downright awesome tonight!

 

[triaddukefan]

The 2016 final was a joke, no offense to UConn fans. Syracuse deserved to be there, but who wants to watch any of those games when there is no chance for the games to be competitive like tonight? I didn't watch a full half of any of those games that year. And I consider myself an avid WBB fan. I bet the more "casual" fan tuned in tonight, because the games were competitive. They were downright awesome tonight!

Well last year's ratings were also higher than the 2015 Finals.

 

[mbr33ct]

They are talking about WCBB on national sports radio right now. about both of tonight's games..... thats unheard of.

Wait, you sure they were not talking about UConn being bad for WCBB?

 

[Charliebball]

It's gonna be another final that no one watches or remembers. That's not a knock on either team, that's just the way sports are when their biggest brand names aren't in the championship games. Later today all the focus will be on the men's semis. Basically the women's semis occurred overnight and might as well have been played in the Australian time zone which is both ironic and sad given the week's recruiting loss.

Notre Dame is a pretty big brand in WBB isn't it? I think the vast majority only like to watch UConn in the hopes that they get beat........the sports talk folks were crowing late last night that the big bad Huskies that love to run up their scores got knocked out......

 

[willtalk]

Brand names are influenced by the media. It depends on what they focus on. The media just has been using UConn's success as a focal point to sell the game. As more parity happens then it would behoove them to begin selling the competition and excitement like they have been doing in the Men's side for years now.

A weird uncomfortableness over came me in respect to the inordinate amount of time that was spent on promoting Geno and everything UConn related during there McDonalds game this year. I mean the focus is supposed to be on the players and not any specific program. Too much time was spent by the announcers on unrelated or loosely related banter rather than what was happening on the court. The conversation should be about the game and the players -ALL THE PLAYERS- . and not just a platform for selective hype.

 

[scubadog]

Brand names are influenced by the media. It depends on what they focus on. The media just has been using UConn's success as a focal point to sell the game. As more parity happens then it would behoove them to begin selling the competition and excitement like they have been doing in the Men's side for years now.

A weird uncomfortableness over came me in respect to the inordinate amount of time that was spent on promoting Geno and everything UConn related during there McDonalds game this year. I mean the focus is supposed to be on the players and not any specific program. Too much time was spent by the announcers on unrelated or loosely related banter rather than what was happening on the court. The conversation should be about the game and the players -ALL THE PLAYERS- . and not just a platform for selective hype.

They have been using Geno for two full seasons now. Makes sense though. Putting Geno and and UConn on top of the pedestal and then knocking them off is a great strategy to bring in more fans.

 

[Ron and Vida]

Brand names are influenced by the media. It depends on what they focus on. The media just has been using UConn's success as a focal point to sell the game. As more parity happens then it would behoove them to begin selling the competition and excitement like they have been doing in the Men's side for years now.

A weird uncomfortableness over came me in respect to the inordinate amount of time that was spent on promoting Geno and everything UConn related during there McDonalds game this year. I mean the focus is supposed to be on the players and not any specific program. Too much time was spent by the announcers on unrelated or loosely related banter rather than what was happening on the court. The conversation should be about the game and the players -ALL THE PLAYERS- . and not just a platform for selective hype.

While all that bantering was going on they weren't naming the players in the game. I t was even more bothersome than usual in this game because we aren't familiar with the players and it is hard to pick them out.
You would think they would realize this.

 

[eebmg]

It's gonna be another final that no one watches or remembers. That's not a knock on either team, that's just the way sports are when their biggest brand names aren't in the championship games. Later today all the focus will be on the men's semis. Basically the women's semis occurred overnight and might as well have been played in the Australian time zone which is both ironic and sad given the week's recruiting loss.

Even in the Mens FF coverage, the women's FF results and the results of both incredible games clearly leaked into their coverage with a level of respect I had not heard before. If we honestly believe our own rhetoric that UConn is good for women's basketball by providing a vision of how good wcbb can be, I think we are witnessing this evolution. I really think the FF teams (+ a few others like Oregon, Baylor, TX etc) raised their level more so than we regressed. Challenge accepted.

 

[Chong-Master]

And its only going to get better, because you are going to see a wider set of parity within the Top 10 to 15 Women's College Basketball in the nation, over the next several seasons. Baylor, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Definitely Louisville (who well may have the best incoming classes earmarked to come in for 2019, 2020 and 2021), Texas, and Mississippi State, along with Oregon and UCLA are going to give UCONN a run for its money to take a spot in the Final 4 for years to come.

Then, people will stop saying that UCONN is not good for the Women's game. But it will become because of UCONN that the Women's Game will have gotten better as a whole.

 

[Bigboote]

Interestingly, on the NPR news break this morning, they mentioned that MSST defeated Louisville in OT, but no mention of UConn-Notre Dame. OTOH, in the Washington post, ND defeating UConn was on the front page of the sports section, while the other game was on p. 7 along with the continuation of the UConn story. It still got a good 10, column inches, though.

 

[CocoHusky]

The 2016 final was a joke, no offense to UConn fans. Syracuse deserved to be there, but who wants to watch any of those games when there is no chance for the games to be competitive like tonight? I didn't watch a full half of any of those games that year. And I consider myself an avid WBB fan. I bet the more "casual" fan tuned in tonight, because the games were competitive. They were downright awesome tonight!

Me.

 

[cohenzone]

So with another OT loss in the semi-finals is UConn still bad for women's basketball?

The semi finals are bad for UConn women’s basketball.