Losses can point to women's sports' gains

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Half a day after his Ohio State Buckeyes had been upset by Boston College in the second round of the NCAA women's basketball tournament, coach Jim Foster was criss-crossing the flat land in the middle of this country, traveling from Indiana back to Ohio on a bus with his team, searching for silver linings.

"It speaks to the quality of coaching and the level of play in the women's game now," Foster said of eighth-seeded BC's 10-point victory vs. the No.1-seeded Buckeyes in West Lafayette, Ind.

"I think the days of being able to get by just on talent are over," said a man who has made his living coaching DivisionI women's basketball for the past 27 years. "We played a very well-coached, very disciplined, very focused basketball team last night. The days of a 1 (seed) just winning a game like that because you showed up don't exist anymore."

Often the wisest voice in sports is the one most recently humbled. And in women's sports, abject disappointment usually is followed within minutes by the most astounding sense of perspective.

At the 2000 Olympics, U.S. soccer star Brandi Chastain stood with a silver medal around her neck crowing about how beneficial it was for international women's soccer that the Norwegians were the ones with the gold medals around theirs. And just last month, women's hockey officials found a measure of delight in the fact that Sweden had upset the United States in the semifinals of the Olympic tournament, if only to prove that women's hockey is not just a North American game.

Winning by losing. It's one of the mantras of the still-expanding world of women's sports, and probably will be for some time.

These are hopeful, disappointing, expectant and sometimes infuriating days for women's college basketball. Take your pick.

Hopeful? One young woman, Candace Parker, dunked twice in the same game the other day. A dunk is like a 300-yard drive by Michelle Wie, something that will get the attention of every male chauvinist in your neighborhood.

Disappointing? While 3million entered espn.com's men's basketball bracket challenge, only 175,000 entered the women's, according to ESPN.

Expectant? The Sweet 16 is loaded to the brim with talented teams and top seeds one year after nontraditional powers Baylor and Michigan State made it to the final, proving that a certain depth has finally come to the women's tournament.

"There are about 10 or 12 teams that have a shot at the title," said Maryland's Brenda Frese, who has guided her Terrapins, a No.2 seed, into the Sweet 16. "Ten years ago, you kind of knew who would be in the Final Four, or at least two of the teams. The past few years, you haven't been able to say that."

Infuriating? What must it be like for these women and their coaches when the male-dominated mainstream media continue to refer to "the tournament," as if there's only one? Or when that pesky little adjective "men's" still is sometimes not used to differentiate one tournament from the other, while the adjective "women's" is never forgotten?

Foster has dealt with these slights for years, so much so that he and his staff have a little fun with it. "When we answer the phone in our office, we answer 'Basketball.' We don't answer 'Women's basketball.' We do that because the men's team doesn't answer the phone 'Men's basketball.'"

Wherever a women's sport is played, comparisons always lurk. Fewer people are watching the women's tournament than the men's, of course. A little less than 4,000 attended the two second-round games at Purdue on Tuesday night. But after the Boilermakers' game, "a large segment got up and left," Foster said, missing the BC-Ohio State game. "The product on the floor is worthy of more people in the bleachers."

There definitely are people watching from their couch. TV ratings have averaged a 0.5 so far on ESPN2. That's half of Major League Baseball's average of 1.0 last regular season on ESPN. And the ratings most certainly will build; four years ago, the NCAA women's final on ESPN went head-to-head with opening day of the 2002 baseball season on ESPN2. The basketball received a 4.1 rating. The Angels and Indians received a 1.4.

Both Foster and Frese know what will ultimately sell their game: well-played, memorable contests, and not only in the Final Four.

"These are important games this week," Frese said. "I don't think fans want to watch games that are 40-38 with a lot of turnovers. We're at the point where these definitely need to be great games."

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