First of all I would like to congratulate the mens teams of Kansas, Ohio State, Kentucky, and Louisville for making it to New Orleans for the Final Four. What a great accomplishment it is to make it all the way to the Final Four. Unfortunately the Ohio State Buckeyes decided to not show up for the second half of the game against Kansas and are now going home. Also Kentucky beat Louisville in the battle of the Kentucky teams in the final four.
For the women's side congratulations to Uconn, Notre Dame, Baylor, and Stanford for making it to Denver for the Women's Final Four. It's great to watch Baylor succeed because I had the opportunity to watch them play in the second round game here at Bowling Green, so I am rooting for them.
To start with the similarities that these both have first of all is how hard all the teams played in these final four games. Each team no matter if the won or lost played extremely hard and made these games very interesting to watch. Especially the crazy ending in the women's Notre Dame and Uconn game. I also feel like these games were both packed. Unlike the sweet sixteen round for women when the place was empty.
Now for the differences, I saw a lot of of these. The first thing that I noticed that was very different was that the coaches did a T.V. interview during timeouts in the girls game. In the guys games there would never be a coach do that. They have a hard time having an interview going into the locker room at the half. Also the mens tournament they played in a huge football stadium, and the womens tournament was played in an NBA stadium which was not close to the same size at all. Another thing that I noticed was the guys final four was on CBS which people can view even if they don't have cable. As for the womens tournament it aired on ESPN which people have to have cable to see it. So it doesn't get to as many people as the mens. I also think that with mens basketball they show way more fan interactions during the game then they do during womens when they strictly focus on the game.
Now its time for the National Championship games. Go Ohio State!! Just kidding. I will be rooting for Kansas and Baylor. Go get it Britney Griner
Post By: Kane Godfrey
I can definitely understand why the men's game was played in a football stadium, while the women's game was played in a NBA arena. There is such demand for the men's game that it literally fills the NFL stadium. In the women's tournament they can barely fill a NBA arena until the final four. If they were to play in an NFL arena also, I just cannot see there being enough demand to fill the stadium. It would be nice, but I just can't see it happening. Maybe in the future, women's basketball will get more publicity and a higher demand, but until then I just cannot see them filling a whole stadium.
ReplyDeleteTyler Schaefer
Comment done by Trent Ringle
ReplyDeleteI think both Kane and Tyler come up with good explanations about why the WNCAA does not get as much publicity as the men do. I would just like to add that I noticed that there is so much more of a fan base for men’s sports than there are for women. When the men’s NCAA basketball tournament was going on social networks like twitter, and facebook had nothing but talk about the games being played. When it came to the women’s game unless I turned on my television and looked for a game I would have never known they were playing. It was almost as if no one really cared about their games, or if they did, they weren’t talking about them as they would for the men’s games.
Comment done by Nick Daverio
ReplyDeleteI agree with Trent. I have also noticed over the years that more people tend to follow men's NCAA sports more often then women's for some reason. Similarities I noticed was that the level of competition in the men's and women's games were very competitive. A big difference I have noticed over the years is that more people pay attention to filling out men's brackets when they come out but never hear about people joining pools for the women's bracket. I did notice this year that Obama did fill out a women's bracket that did air on ESPN. I personally have filled out a women's bracket the past couple of years because I like filling out brackets and also because as a fan of Notre Dame is fun to watch the women's team play at a high level of competition as of lately.
Comment. By Jared King.
ReplyDeleteI feel everyone brings up a good point. There are a couple things I would like to point out as well. For one, all eight schools to make the final four, four for men's, four for women's are big time division 1 programs. One would think it shouldn't be too difficult for them to fill seats regardless of if it's men's or women's. Having said that, there were really no Cinderella teams this year either so that could be a possibility for not as much interest.
The next point I want to bring up is the next level for these athletes. Men you have the NBA and women you have the WNBA. I feel overall the college ranks pull more interest than the professional level for the fan bases. I feel the sole reason you have men leave early and women don't is because of the money. Men have a lot more money to be made than the women do and that's why you see women usually going deeper into their college careers.