Every year, someone wonders aloud if the UConn Huskies are actually hurting women's college basketball by being "too dominant." This year, it was Dan Shaughnessy.
A columnist for the Boston Globe, Shaughnessy fired off a tweet Saturday afternoon arguing the Huskies are "killing the women's game," referring to the team's 98-38 drubbing of Mississippi State. UConn head coach Geno Auriemma was highly critical of Shaughnessy's remark and countered with an argument of his own.
"When Tiger [Woods] was winning every major, nobody said he was bad for golf," Auriemma said. "Actually, he did a lot for golf. He made everybody have to be a better golfer. And they did. And now there's a lot more great golfers because of Tiger."
Shaughnessy has since doubled down and reiterated his position in a column, identifying the reason as being because Auriemma's team has "no competition" and "is virtually never tested." The other narrative that has become exhausted by now, which Shaughnessy used as well, is that this consistent dominance has made women's college basketball boring.
ESPN, the network airing the women's NCAA Division I tournament, reported a 46 percent ratings increase from last year for the first and second rounds. The tournament's Final Four already features a seven-seed, as Washington has defeated third-seeded Kentucky and fourth-seeded Stanford to get there. When the Kentucky men went into the Final Four last year at 38-0, their loss to Wisconsin was the highest rated Final Four game in 22 years.
Five Thirty Eight devised ways to compare recruiting classes of men's and women's basketball programs. In essence, it was meant to show women's and men's coaches ability to recruit the best players in their respective recruiting classes over the last four years. John Calipari is the best at it and Auriemma was quite good, but not the best among women's basketball coaches.
Auriemma is way better at coaching and development than he is at recruiting. Yes, he lands players like top prospects like Breanna Stewart (players ranked number one overall), but so does Tennessee, Duke, Rutgers and Notre Dame. Auriemma is a good recruiter, but he is not dramatically better than his contemporaries.
The other problem with Shaughnessy's argument was when he brought up some of those dominant teams that were more battle-tested and had rivals that challenged them. When talking about college basketball, that conversation goes right to John Wooden and UCLA. Wooden led UCLA to 10 National Championships: his first coming in 1948 and his last in 1975.
But when Wooden won that first championship, the men's Division I Tournament had been around for 25 years. By the time he won his final championship, women's college basketball was still seven years away from having its own Division I Tournament.
Auriemma took over the UConn women's team in 1985, three years after the women's game got a tournament and he did not win his first championship until 1995. Women's college basketball just needs more time but it simply has not had as much time as the men's game has had to get to a point where there is greater parity.
TV ratings prove that Americans like watching dominant sports teams. Even if people just wanted to see Tiger lose, they were watching. It is the same of the UConn women. Viewers this year will either see the Huskies continue a historic run, or they will see another team end it. It is a win-win, really, for ESPN and for fans.
It is time to recognize the greatness of Auriemma and the women he has coached, while understanding that such adoration does not have to detract from others.