In writing about the growth of conference networks the other day, Jeff Rabjohns of the Indianapolis Star wrote about how TV exposure is so important for women's basketball.
Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott might be even more forward thinking than that: as described by SBN's Addicted To Quack, for the first time ever, the Pac-10 has partnered with YouTube to stream all men's and women's games and thus significantly increasing broadcast exposure.
It's Time to Change the Pac-10 Tourney - Addicted To Quack
Some of you may have noticed that Scott announced that the Pac-10 tourney has partnered up with YouTube to stream post-game conferences as well as any games that are not already going to be broadcast on FSN (read: women's games). This is a great step by Scott and the conference in increasing exposure in the Pac-10 tournament. In the last couple of years the tournament has been little more than an after thought on the national stage at this time of year. And that really needs to change. I don't think I need to tell you how important it is for marketing dollars, recruiting, and the betterment of the conference to get as much exposure on Pac-10 teams as possible.
In addition to being a great way to spend your time at work for a few days, it's a great way for all the east coast haters people to actually see the talent the conference has to offer before the NCAA tournament. You can see those games by clicking here: http://www.youtube.com/Pac10Conference.
Another fun part of conference tournaments is the announcement conference awards. The fun thing about awards is there's always room for disagreement. SBN's Crimson and Cream Machine (Oklahoma) is taking issue with the 2011 Big 12 award selections, particularly with Baylor's Odyssey Sims being named freshman of the year over Sooners freshman Aaryn Ellenberg.
Big 12 Women's Basketball Post Season Awards announced - Crimson And Cream Machine
However, somewhat expectantly the conference proved incredibly predictable by robbing OU's Aaryn Ellenberg of the Freshman of the Year Award. The league instead chose to simply look at team performance for an individual award and gave the honor to Baylor's Odyssey Sims. Look Sims is a good player on a better team than OU, but there is no way she had a better season than Ellenberg. Sure she can toss the ball into a 6'8" player who has a ridiculous height advantage and draws triple teams leaving a guard like Sims wide open to shot practice type wide open 3's, wow that sure is tough.
Although the basic stats favor jtesooner's point, the advanced stats (that I last recorded on February 14) might justify the choice of Sims over Ellenberg.
Ellenberg used more possessions than Sims in scoring more points per game and likely as a result, Sims was the more efficient scorer. But Sims was also the more efficient passer and got herself to the free throw line more often. Both have outstanding potential and it's hard to say that Ellenberg was robbed, but I'm leaning toward Sims on this one.
Other links:
- Update: jtesooner followed that up this morning with a Big 12 tournament preview of Oklahoma and says that their key player is, you guessed it, Ellenberg.
- SBN's Rule of Tree (Stanford) is excited about the Pac-10 awards, which Stanford dominated. And there's plenty of room for debate in those selections.
- In other conference tournament news, after losing the Big Ten tournament to Ohio State, SBN's Black Shoe Diaries wonders about Penn State's place in the NCAA tournament.
- And as expected, the Lady Vols fans at Rocky Top Talk are excited about winning another SEC title and are busy praising Shekinna Stricklen for her performance this year. It's hard to put anybody on the Griner-Moore plane of excellence, but Stricklen is as close as any of the names people toss around to make National Player of the Year sound more competitive than it is.
- SBN's Bull Run (Buffalo) is excited about Kourtney Brown winning MAC Player of the Year and notes that she could be one of the first UB players selected in a professional draft (along with fellow All-MAC first team member Lauren Prochaska).
- And I would be remiss if I didn't pass on a(nother) rap song related to women's basketball (via SBN's The UConn Blog), this one being "White and Navy" a remix of - you guessed it - "Black and Yellow".
Have other links of interest that aren't mentioned here, from SBN or elsewhere? Feel free to drop a note in the comments.