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Women's title game fell way short

Print | Comments () Posted by Bob Ryan, Globe Staff April 7, 2010 12:56 PM

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It was a stunning contrast, and a very unfortunate one for women's basketball.

Twenty-four hours after Duke and Butler put on a men's championship game that dignified everyone concerned, the UConn and Stanford women did their game a grave disservice with an abomination of a title game.

I am a champion of women's basketball, but game on Tuesday night was an embarrassment. I know the game is better than that, but God forbid someone not familiar with how far women's basketball has come might have tuned into that game. A 20-12 halftime score? Under any ordinary circumstance, we would have been discussing how dreadful Stanford had been, and yet the Cardinals were up by eight.

There was a glimpse of quality in the second half when Maya Moore seized control of the game, lugging UConn to its seventh title and helping extend the Huskies' winning streak to 78. But the overall level of play was horrible. And then I pick up the paper on Wednesday morning and see that someone is thinking about expanding the women's tournament to 96 also? We might need federal intervention.