The Colorado women’s basketball team celebrates its 78-71 win against the TCU Horned Frogs in the NIT, March 19, 2014. (Elizabeth Rodriguez/ CU Independent)
For one game last November, the Univeristy of Colorado women’s basketball team had the packed house it deserves everytime.
On Nov. 20, the Buffs held on for a 90-87 win over Iowa. For a Colorado team that would finish with only one loss throughout their non-conference schedule, it was a close call in an otherwise unscathed season up to that point.
While that full student section should have been exiting contently after bearing witness to a solid Colorado victory, they instead rushed forward and lined up at the bottom of the stands.
These fans didn’t appreciate the epic victory they sat through, and only showed to get tickets for the following month’s men’s basketball showdown against the University of Kansas (a game that, as you might remember, also ended with fans on the court).
You may think I’m upset about all of these students attending a women’s basketball game just to get tickets for a men’s game. I’m not. It was a marketing idea executed by Colorado Athletic Director Rick George and the athletic department, and it served its purpose. It was the largest attendance for a women’s basketball game until the end of February.
What I do have a problem with is that almost none of those students came back for another women’s game, which means they missed the obvious.
This team is good.
If we can assume that most students in attendance were Colorado basketball fans, wouldn’t they have recognized good basketball when they saw it? They were there for [then] senior guard Brittany Wilson’s highlight performance. Wilson scored 26 points in 30 minutes against Iowa, and has since signed to play professional basketball in Iceland. They saw guard Lauren Huggins shoot 50 percent from three-point range, and forward Arielle Robinson come one rebound shy of a double-double, something she nearly averaged last season.
I worry about the perception that women’s basketball is somehow an inferior product to men’s basketball. This troubles me because it’s not true.
Sure, if you’re looking for high flying dunk-filled action, you’re not going to get any in the women’s game this side of Brittney Griner. But if you want to dive into the statistics, you’ll find that the women’s basketball team last year was not only even with the men’s basketball team, but in some ways superior.
They averaged a full point less per game than the men’s team (69.2 to the men’s 70.2), but the women’s team outscored their opponents by an average of 5.7 points per game, which is more than double the men’s scoring margin of +2.0. The women’s team also managed to out-steal, out-block and out-assist their opponents overall, which is something the men’s team failed to accomplish on all three accounts.
That is a far cry from the low-scoring, low-fundamental contests many college basketball fans expect from a women’s basketball game. The reason they expect this is because, unfortunately, too many fans have never taken the time to watch a women’s basketball game.
That’s their loss, especially here at Colorado. CU fields a top-tier team, and that team plays against top-tier competition. The Pac-12 is among the premier women’s basketball conferences in the NCAA, with four teams that made it to the NCAA Division I tournament last year and another four playing in the Postseason WNIT.
So this season, don’t miss out on a Colorado women’s basketball team that will look to compete at the top of the Pac-12 after a 2013-14 season plagued with injury. It may have lost three seniors, but the women’s basketball team is set to return this season with a roster that’s deep with talent and experience.
Go see this team because they only lost three home games last year by three points or less– losses that might not have happened if they had a bigger, louder student section behind them.
Go because of team leader Arielle Roberson, who is one of the best players in the Pac-12, if not the country, and has the chance to make a name for herself in the WNBA someday.
Go because, after only four years at CU, head coach Linda Lappe is already the second-winningest coach in Colorado women’s basketball history.
Go if you have a CU Sports Pass because you already have a ticket to every women’s basketball game.
Go if you’re a basketball fan because you’re doing yourself a disservice by missing out on some of the best college basketball in the West.
The Colorado women’s basketball team starts their season Nov. 8 with an exhibition at home against Colorado State-Pueblo. The game starts at 6 p.m., and I expect to see you there.
Contact CUIndependent Sports Staff Writer Sam Routhier at Samuel.routhier@colorado.edu. Follow him on twitter at @samrouthier.
