I just thought I would throw this out there because I know people are thinking it. We do still cover women’s basketball. Although our traffic runs about two-thirds men’s basketball to one-third women’s, we try to feature more of a 60/40 split on the front page. We’ve had a run lately of men’s stories but it’s just a coincidence.
Meanwhile, I would hope more Division III women’s basketball fans become more active supporters of te coverage on our site. Let us know what you think. You’re a very silent group, but we do care about you.
For you women’s hoops fans, next Monday night 5:30 pm on the McMurry web site, the Lady Indians host their crosstown-rival Cowgirls in Kimbrell Arena. The visitor has won 4 of the last 5 matches and both teams are undefeated in 2005-06.
Here are pics from last January’s meeting that went to double overtime. Even tho’ both schools are out for the semester, there should be a good crowd for this one. 🙂
http://www.d3hoops.com/gallery.php?gallery=36835
I am looking forward to seeing S. Maine in Salem, MA on December 17, and since I live nearby, I will go to Salem to see it in person. I’m glad that D3HoopsNet is planning to do a webcast of that game, as I am looking forward to once again see Mark Simon in person and hopefully talk to him.
I also am looking forward to January and the University Athletic Association conference season.
As someone relatively new to both the D3 hoops.com site and NCAA Div3 basketball generally, I have found your site to be an outstanding source of information for both the mens and womens action.With a myriad of conferences and traditional rivalries for the uninitiated fans like me to wade through, you go a long way to making sense of it all. It is great to read exchanges of opinion on the various topics of the day that are both passionate and articulate.
To show my own biases, the St. John Fisher / Medaille womens game on Saturday Dec. 10 in Buffalo should be a terrific regional match up. SJF are a well established program and 6-0 thus far; Medaille were 3-20 3 seasons ago,a break out 20-7 last year ( in an admittedly somewhat weak conference, but light years from 3-20 in a weak conference!); the Lady Mavs with an athletic crew of 7 freshman,7 sophomores and 1 junior have looked great themselves in the early season, moving to a 6-0 start. Long time SFF success versus a team on the rise should make for a great game.
There does appear to be a strong — stronger than 60/40, I’d say — bias toward men’s coverage. That may be partly the fault of women’s fans who don’t promote their game enough.
Generally speaking, women and girls play the game the way it is intended to be played: teamwork, defense, smart decision-making, respect for the game itself. If one looks closely at recent men’s Div. I champions, one might even say that the best men’s teams are starting to play the game the way women play it.
An example of the tilt on the website toward the men’s game might be the hoopla this week about the No. 2 and No. 3 men’s teams meeting. I didn’t see that much hoopla last week when No. 2 Bowdoin women traveled to No. 3 USM women, and USM won a terrific ball game in which Bowdoin was always down but never out until the count reached 40. Nearly 1,000 Maine people were smart enough to know this game would be a beaut and turned out at the Hill gym to see it. My wife and I drove about 90 miles each way for the game and don’t regret an inch of the journey, even at today’s fuel prices.
It was interesting to see the stands at USM empty out after the women’s game as the men of Bowdoin and USM began warming for the second game of the evening. That happens at Bowdoin, too, although frequently the men play the warm-up game at Bowdoin and the women play the later game, presumably the feature matchup.
You may need to dig a little deeper to cover the women’s game because sports pages and college/university athletics departments are still bent toward the men’s side. But I expect that most of the new fans coming to the game are coming, as we did, to the women’s game.
Indeed. We blogged about that game last week and it didn’t draw any responses.
That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t feature said game on the front after it happened. We did. It just happened to be the same night that Bethany upset a Division II team that made the NCAA Tournament last year. While D-III teams beat D-II teams on a fairly regular basis, something like that happens only a few times a year.
I would also say, Turkeyman, that you won’t find a bigger supporter of D3 women’s coverage on this site than me (ask Pat). I’ve covered 5 Division III Women’s Final 4’s for this site and have written very comprehensively about the women’s game in “Around the Nation.” I’ve also fought to get more coverage of women’s basketball on the webcast of “Hoopsville” each week.
We gave Bowdoin-Southern Maine a fair shake. The fact that no one responded to the blog entry on that game ticked me off. I’m driving 2.5 hours each way next Saturday to broadcast Southern Maine-Salem State for this site and I hope that a few people will tune in.
There are 13,000+ messages on the men’s boards on Posting Up compared to about 2,100 on the women’s boards. I think that those who follow women’s hoops need to speak up more, and Turkeyman, I’m glad you did so.