I was at the gym yesterday when I experienced something that I did not think existed…a women’s college basketball fan. Actually, it was two fans. I’m in between sets of squats when I hear two guys to my left start talking about the women’s NCAA tournament. My jaw dropped like I had just seen a unicorn. Not only were they talking about the tournament but they were talking specifically about regular season games as well as the spread of the upcoming tournament games. I gamble so I know my own kind. These guys weren’t complete degenerates who found a niche and were taking advantage of it. Instead they were the 0.00000001% that ESPN is catering to when they have women’s tournament analysis and highlights (side note: Trey Wingo must have done something really bad at ESPN to get assigned to covering this. He must long for the days of NFL Live). Over the course of their 5+ minute conversation (yes, it was that long) they talked about how this UConn team is not the same as previous years, what sort of adjustments Geno Auriemma could make, how Notre Dame played during a few different regular season games, and how the Baylor spread was pretty high and showed them a lot of respect. As they broached a new topic within women’s college hoops I became more and more shocked and enthralled in what I was experiencing.
It was 9 am on a Sunday and would have said there was a better chance of seeing someone walk into the gym naked wearing only a BJ Armstrong jersey than hearing two 200+ pound dudes talking shop about women’s college hoops. I knew that it was my obligation as a man and sports fan to find out how in the hell these two started liking women’s college basketball. I went up to them and simply asked, “I overheard you talking about women’s college hoops, how in the world did you get into this?” The guy who responded to me was taken aback for a second and then opened up. He said that six years ago he was on the coaching staff at San Diego State’s women’s basketball team and that’s where it came from. He just continued to follow the sport after that. I knew that there had to be some sort of weird connection for this to happen. I was going to guess that one of his sisters was Rebecca Lobo or something. There’s no way that you could just decide that you are going to follow women’s college hoops without having some sort of tie to it.
I never got this guys name but did some research and think that I found him (as well as his friend who didn’t say anything to me). His name is Willie Judd and his friend was Jon Francis (go to the second to last page). He then proceeded to tell me that he doesn’t like women’s hoops as much as men’s (whew), that the women’s game is much slower and 100% of the time they run plays because they aren’t athletic enough (compared to the men’s game), and that the exception to all of this is Baylor’s Brittney Griner because she’s so tall they can just lob the ball in to her. That was enough information for me and I went on my way.
I’m sure the two paragraphs above were probably the most amount amount of women’s college basketball information that you’ve read in your entire life. I apologize that you had to read anything about Geno Auriemma and Brittney Griner instead of reading about Florida Gators guard Ervin Walker being arrested for stealing a $3 taco or something about Carlos Baerga. I, however, felt that this was something that needed to be said to confirm that there are actually two women’s college basketball fans in America. If I somehow hear two guys talking about a WNBA fantasy draft then I’m going to complete lose it.
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