After Atalanta

(I'm not really sure exactly how that title is going to fit with the rest of the post, but I liked the way it sounded, so I am going with it.) So, in case you didn't know, men's intercollegiate basketball has its own tournament. It culminated last night in a final game between University of Connecticut and Butler University. Sure UConn has won the title three previous times, but this year they were only a #3 seed and Butler was a #8. The numerous upsets caused much disturbance in fans' brackets this year, so I can't imagine many people tuned in to watch this final game, which unfortunately aired at 9:30 on the east coast (which everyone knows is the bestest time zone!). And frankly, they didn't miss much. I think it's time we talk seriously about the inferiority of the men's game. Does the dunk and fancy schmancy above the rim play really compensate for lack of shooting skills so evident in last night's game? I mean, the score at the half was 22-19 (...

I don't even know why it took this long for someone to turn one of the other lesbian-fan dominated events into a big lesboganza. But this year in San Antonio where the women's Final Four is being held, an enterprising lesbian from San Diego is hosting a big par-tay for all the women loving women out there. And it's being hosted by Curve and Hersportsfan.com (a website for female fans of women's sports). And the honorary chair is the only truly out coach, Portland State's It's called the Final Four Fling and promoter Jody Sims is hoping to make the Final Four a Dinah Shore-esque event. So now the only question is which group is more queasy about being associated with lesbians: women's golf or women's intercollegiate basketball? Doesn't matter, really. Throw them a party (loosely) affiliated with a sporting event, and they will come.

It seems I have gone through March Madness without blogging about it. And it's not as if there haven't been plenty of opinions bandied about about "the women's game" and parity and excitement and promotion/publicity. So on this--the morning of the final--I'll try to address some of these things. In an entry from almost two weeks ago, this guy says that the "NCAA tournament soundly defeats parity." That there are "no surprises" in the women's game. That it's easy to bet on the women's tournament because it is so predictable. Ridiculous for two notable reasons. One, the controversy over seeding was pretty intense this year with Stanford not so subtly hinting that they deserved a #1 seed. And despite the lack of major upsets there were many games that I tuned in for--and others I know did as well--because the outcome was nowhere near a sure thing. Sure, it would have been highly unlikely that any team not seeded in the top 4 would ...