After riding a 78-0 win streak to consecutive championships at UConn, center Tina Charles is a no-brainer for WNBA Rookie of the Year. Photo by Craig Bennett/112575 Media.

View full size photo »

And now, we're in the Royal Court of women's college basketball.  The programs listed here are dominated by two programs that have won the bulk of the hardware in the NCAA over the last thirty years.  Nearly very single team listed here is not merely a significant competitor, but a significant contributor to the history of women's basketball.

Continue reading this post »

Chicago Sky Epipphany Prince left Rutgers University early to pursue a professional career amidst a number of significant departures since 2007. Photo by Craig Bennett/112575 Media.

View full size photo »

We're on the fourth day of our rundown of the best programs in NCAA Division I women's basketball.  What all of the programs on the list below have in common is that they've had a great deal of success either recently or just a handful of years back - but usually not both.

This is also is the part of the list where the mid-major programs disappear.  Above the #15 spot, all of the programs listed here are from the six major conferences:  the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big Twelve, Pacific Ten (soon to be Twelve), and Southeastern Conferences.  These conferences generally have the money to hire the best coaches, the money to spend on facilities and in some cases, those conferences have their own television sports networks.

Continue reading this post »

Although California has yet to land a recent graduate in a WNBA rotation, players like former WNBA first-round draft pick Ashley Walker have helped bring visibility to the program. Photo via jlindstr.smugmug.com

View full size photo »

We continue with the next level of programs.  Most of the programs on this part of the list are fairly well known and can usually be expected to appear somewhere on either the weekly ESPN or AP polls.  They're either listed somewhere near the bottom, or can usually be found in the small print, gathering a few votes here and there.  They are usually well-known programs that have had some recent setbacks, or less familiar programs that are on their way up.

Continue reading this post »

Atlanta Dream point guard Shalee Lehning has been one of Kansas State University's biggest success stories lately, but the program has declined since her departure. Photo by Craig Bennett/112575 Media.

View full size photo »

This post is number two of a five-post series on the best programs in women's college basketball.  Yesterday, we looked at the teams that were ranked #71-#100 on the list, this time we look at the next thirty teams on the list.

Continue reading this post »

Indiana Fever rookie guard Jene Morris is the first-ever San Diego State University alum in the WNBA. Her 2010 NCAA tournament success might be a sign of good things to come for her college program. Photo by Craig Bennett/112575 Media.

View full size photo »

If you think about it, it doesn't take much to call yourself one of the best college programs in women's basketball.  If you went to the NCAA tournament last year, you could say that.  If you went to the WNIT you could stake a claim.  Even if your program went to the WBI - the Women's Basketball Invitational - with a sub-.500 record, you could point at them as "up and coming".

For that matter, all a school has to do is point at any record of past success - some past success which might be decades old - and a team can stake a claim as one of the greats.  But which teams are great programs now?  What kind of programs have a record of success where an honest claim could be made to be a top NCAA Division I women's program?

The proposed list of the top 100 teams is an attempt to sort the contenders from the pretenders.  There are programs here on the way up, and programs on the way down.  There are programs on the list that have had coaches with decades-long tenures and some coaches which have been with their schools three years or less.  Some of the programs are annual contenders and some on the list have made their first appearances in the post-season only in the 21st century.

So which schools have the best women's programs in Division I?  Get ready to begin the debate.  Let's take a look at the programs in the 71-100 range - the programs which are short of serious consideration but which are definitely better than average.

Continue reading this post »

The May 3rd edition of Sports Illustrated had an interesting article from Austin Murphy regarding the realignment of the major conferences. The article focused on the changes in the college football landscape, as the money making (*) sport and the sport that gets the most attention in college sports is college football.

Over the past twenty years, conferences changing their membership lists should be no surprise. Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1990, expanding the conference to 11 teams (and giving the conference a rather inaccurate name). In 1991, Arkansas and South Carolina joined the Southeastern Conference. Two years later, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor abandoned the Southwest conference to join the (former) Big Eight, spelling the beginning of the end for the Southwest Conference. The Atlantic Coast Conference picked up Florida State in 1991 and then raided the Big East in 1994, spiriting away Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College out of the Big East.

Currently, college sports is ruled by the six BCS (Bowl Championship Series) conferences: the ACC, the Big East, the Big Ten, the Big Twelve, the Southeastern Conference and the Pacific (Pac 10). However, if one read the above paragraph, you'd recognize that conference alignments are never fixed. The SI article gets underway with a mention of Jim Delany, the Big Ten commissioner, who mentioned that the "timing is right" for an expansion in twelve to eighteen months.

One rule in collegiate sports is that if football drives conference realignment, the other sports will have to follow. This includes our favorite sport, women's basketball. The article mentions three possible expansion scenarios, each with increasing impact on the sport scene.

Continue reading this post »

Jeff Gross - Getty Images

4 months ago: SAN ANTONIO - APRIL 06: (L-R) Tina Charles #31, Caroline Doty #5 and Kelly Faris #34 of the Connecticut Huskies celebrate a 53-47 win against the Stanford Cardinal during the NCAA Women's Final Four Championship game at the Alamodome on April 6, 2010 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

View full size photo »

Recently, I obtained some Nielsen data regarding the 2010 NCAA Women's Basketball Championship. I thought the championship rematch between Connecticut and Stanford was a disappointing game, and my conclusion was this would be reflected in the Nielsen ratings for the game. I knew that hour-per-hour Nielsens were available, and that those ratings or shares would reflect those of a disappointing game - high numbers at first, and then falling thereafter.

What I forgot was that I had an insider who could look up television ratings. Unfortunately, the only ratings the insider could get me were from Dallas and Houston. I received a set of Houston ratings and hopefully, I'll get the ratings from Dallas soon.

The data I have is Live+SD, Live+3 and Live+7. All of these numbers represent a time range from the original air date of the program, since Nielsen understand that many people these days will record a program on their DVR and watch it later. "Live+SD" reflects televisions where either the game was watched as it aired, or was recorded plus watched on the same day. The +3 and +7 designations extend this viewing window up to +3/+7 days after the game was recorded. Since the numbers are roughly the same, I'll be using the Live+SD (seen live or on the same day) numbers.

Here is the quarter-hour data for Houston, Texas for the Connecticut-Stanford game. The game started at 7:30 pm central time, and 7 pm begins the lead-in to the show.

Continue reading this post »

Ronald Martinez - Getty Images

4 months ago: SAN ANTONIO - APRIL 06: Forward Maya Moore #23 of the Connecticut Huskies reacts after a play against the Stanford Cardinal during the NCAA Women's Final Four Championship game at the Alamodome on April 6, 2010 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

View full size photo »

78-0 - Connecticut's streak to all-time winningest team just keeps on rolling. Even after a miserable first half in the national championship game and taking a deficit into the locker room, UConn found a way to dominate the second half and notch back-to-back perfect seasons for the first time ever in women's college basketball.

This morning, Oklahoma head coach Sherri Coale was asked on an Oklahoma City radio station if the streak was good for the sport of women's basketball. Her candid response might surprise a few of you.

Continue reading this post »