Burn Parity, Burn
This year the women's NCAA basketball tournament definitely achieved a level of parity with the men's NCAA basketball tournament. But it wasn't all good.
On the positive side, most basketball observers agree that the women's championship game was far superior to the men's. While the men's game was over by halftime, the women's game on Tuesday was a gut-wrenching come-from-behind thriller won by Maryland 78-75 in OT for the school's first women's basketball championship. It was the kind of game that neither team deserved to lose, and the kind of game that can really jack up national interest in women's college basketball.
More good news for the women, ratings for the women's title game were up 19 percent from last year, while ratings for the men's game were down 25 percent from 2005. That said, the women still have a ways to go, with the overall ratings at 3.1 for the women and 11.6 for the men.
On the other hand, after the Terps victory, Maryland revelers showed that knuckleheadedness is not gender-biased by foolishly rioting and vandalizing the streets of College Park, Maryland.
Yes, the women's game has reached such a level of parity with the men's game that now their post-championships riots are being favorably compared to those of the men. One participant even noted, "I've been to all the men's riots, and this is even crazier."
So this year Candace Parker dunks in a tournament game, twice; the women's TV ratings outperform the men's; and the women's championship is finally celebrated with a good, old-fashioned, car-burning, brick-throwing, police-taunting drunken riot.
You've come a long way, baby?