Columnist Ron Kantowski: Women’s game must find its own niche

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 | 9:03 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

If the NCAA were in the market for a presenting sponsor of its women's basketball tournament, I'd suggest the Hoover company, because this is one year the distaff side is hooping it up in a vacuum.

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with this year's women's tournament, other than half of it is being played directly opposite the men. In another year, that might not be a terrible thing. But in a year like this one, where the men's tournament is providing more drama than "All My Children" and "Survivor" and Michael Jackson's pajama party all rolled into one, Pat Summitt might have to hit the streets with a sandwich board and a bullhorn before anybody would notice.

This was the week that Summitt bagged coaching victory Nos. 880 and 881 at Tennessee to move past Dean Smith on the all-time NCAA victory list. It also was the week that Stanford finally removed irascible Geno Auriemma's fingerprints from the championship trophy that his UConn women had pretty much taken ownership of.

Too bad nobody was watching.

Well, that's not entirely true, as 547,000 homes were tuned into ESPN's weekend coverage of the women's tournament. That sounds like a lot, until you learn that 6.14 million households were being held captive by the men. Then it's kind of like Earl Boykins standing alongside Andrew Bogut.

"It (the women's tournament) is being completely overshadowed by the men," said Chuck Schoffner, who covers women's basketball for the Associated Press and is arguably this country's foremost women's hoops expert as well as one of its biggest proponents.

The women's committee was prudent in getting the games off CBS, where its tournament was basically presented like a junior varsity game, and onto ESPN, which treats it like the kinda, sorta big deal it has become. Two surefire signs that a sporting event is worth watching is whether you can bet on it in Las Vegas and whether ESPN hires a team of talking heads -- er, studio analysts -- to provide insight.

So there's no question that the women's tournament, like Summit's legend, is growing. But not to where a politically incorrect comment like the one ESPN's Lisa Leslie made on camera Sunday -- she incorrectly picked North Carolina to prevail in Monday's regional final before adding "I really want Baylor to win" -- causes a national disturbance.

In defense of Leslie, at least she said what was on her mind. To me, that's better than Billy Packer pulling for whatever ACC team is still alive over on CBS while pretending to be impartial.

Back to the matter at hand, at least the women's committee had the foresight to move half of its tournament onto Monday and Tuesday night, where outside of the odd NIT game, it has little competition for viewers (although two more lackluster games Monday night probably didn't reel them in).

But it makes you wonder if the women have explored putting even more distance between their old school-style tournament, with its many pick-and-rolls and patterned offenses, and the men's football game played in short pants.

I asked Schoffner if starting the season a couple of weeks earlier in trade for some undivided attention would behoove the women.

"I know that has been asked before and it's a question that probably should be asked again," he said. "But you'd have to keep it within the confines of the (traditional) basketball season."

My thought was that if the women reverted to a 48-team bracket -- there are still way too many 72-36 games between the haves and have-nots on opening weekend -- and got a two-week head start, they could fit in their tournament before the men get started. In addition, one of those colossal regular-season UConn-Tennessee matchups could be scheduled during the first two weeks of the season, giving basketball fans in need of a fix something to gnaw on in early November.

Were the women to make too many concessions to the men, they might run the risk of tacitly reinforcing the idea that its tournament is inferior. The trick is to find a compromise to "grow the sport," as they say in NASCAR, without compromising the public's perception of it.

UNLV women's basketball coach Regina Miller said she sees the value in moving away from the men's tournament and agrees it would be better to play ahead of the men instead of after them, the way it is now. But she said starting the season earlier could also be a logistical problem.

"If we started two weeks earlier than we already do (practice begins Oct. 15) we would almost become a fall sport," she said. "It would be a problem for schools that are on the quarter system instead of the semester system. Most of those schools don't start classes until late September."

Miller said it's important the women's tournament continue to grow and she thinks that growth has been steady -- until West Virginia and Louisville, and Arizona and Illinois, and Kentucky and Michigan State, and West Virginia and Wake Forest and ... well, you get the idea ... began playing overtime thrillers with the entire nation glued to their TV sets.

"Who knew that the men's tournament was going to be so exciting?" she said.

Certainly not CBS.

"Any time you get games like we've gotten, the ratings are going to be outstanding," CBS Sports president Sean McManus told USA Today. "Occasionally, the stars align and events take on a larger-than-life magic aura. This tournament falls into that category."

You don't have to magnify the replay and show it a dozen times for proof. The toe is not even close to that line.

Based on its nonstop promotional plugs, CBS apparently had planned to turn the regional finals into a marathon infomercial for Monday night's "Everybody Loves Raymond" rerun.

Instead, the network hit nothing but net by falling into a big pile of last-ditch rallies, desperation 3-pointers and fantastic finishes.

These are the things we won't soon forget. They also are the things that have turned what normally is an interesting women's tournament into theatre of the ordinary.