As we venture through yet another season of March Madness tournaments for college basketball, there is always a constant. That constant is UConn Women's Basketball putting up another extreme blowout victory over Albany. It has been the storyline for almost a decade and as of now, a current streak of being undefeated for three, four straight years. While their win streak is an impressive feat in itself, it is also something that makes them a very unwatchable team.
For the record, I am not misogynistic. There are great games for women's basketball. Other tournament games have shown to yield close and exciting match ups where the effort is seen from the start until the final buzzer. In the case of UConn, they don't bring anything exciting to the table unless you are loyal to that college or are a huge fan of them. It's blowout after blowout of teams that they face. By the time half time comes, you're searching for something else to watch because they are up by 30 points. That's what drives people away. People want to see games come down to the wire. Not games that you see from this team. It goes beyond college basketball.
I was a waterboy for my high school football team. We had a two game period where the total points was over 100. One game was 49 points. The other was 80. In the case of the latter, the scoring was so huge in the first quarter, the back ups were in by the time the end of it and the start of the second quarter occurred. Even with that, they were still scoring. While the opponents did score a few times, it was one of the most lopsided games I had ever seen. It was quite embarrassing. You feel bad for opponents. An example was my younger brother and his modified basketball team. They were scoring and the opponent couldn't even make a single lay up. You know you're in a bizarre world when both team's crowds want to see some points from the one that hasn't scored.
You hear these stories about shutouts and blowouts and even some of the consequences that occur. There's that story back in 2009 of a Texas high school girls basketball team shutting out their opponent 100 to nothing. Sometime after that, the administration called for a forfeit and fired the coach. You hear coaches getting suspended for high point differentials. Sometimes, the quality of the games are so poor, you wonder how some of these teams live with it. Whether it comes down to competition or something else, who knows?
Getting back to Uconn, their coach, Geno Auriemma had the audacity a few years ago to say men's college basketball was awful. I understand that both men and women's basketball are different. There are different ways of playing the game on each side, but Auriemma has got to be the biggest idiot and really shouldn't be complaining about what the other side of the sport. Yeah, there is the debate on whether to take your foot off the gas during a game for any sport, the fact that he doesn't really shows off his arrogance. I bet he wouldn't last five years on a men's basketball team. The competition is lot fiercer throughout the United States. Obviously, the North Carolina teams, Ohio State, the Michigan teams, Syracuse, Oregon, Florida, the list goes on.
Auriemma simply doesn't get it. People are getting sick and tired of the constant blowout victories. I don't think any team is ever going to break their record of wins whenever it does end, but it gets frustrating. Why should viewers tune in to Uconn games unless you are a die hard or loyal fan? I'm not saying to boycott women's sports overall, but when it's comes to shit games, you are looking for that remote control. A dumbed down kids film would be exciting than UConn, and that's not saying much.
I'll reiterate again that I'm not misogynistic. However, until Auriemma retires, I don't know what will be seen from women's college basketball. It's a borefest when UConn faces opponents. Unfortunately, a lot of people, including myself, have to face the music and wait patiently for that retirement or some other team or teams to take the throne and make women's basketball more exciting and interesting.
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