When Mississippi State defeated UConn in the semifinals of the 2017 women’s Final Four in Dallas, Dawn Staley was as surprised as the rest of the country.
The South Carolina head coach, who had led her team to a win over Stanford, assumed their national championship opponent would be an epic UConn team riding a 111-game win streak and defending four consecutive titles.
“That was a huge moment in college women’s basketball,” Staley said Tuesday in a news conference. “Mississippi State took down the giant.”
The Final Four has had some combination of UConn, Stanford, South Carolina, Louisville, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Maryland and Baylor almost every year for the last two decades — until this year.
While South Carolina is back for the third consecutive time and heavily favored to defend its 2022 title, Virginia Tech is in for the first time, Iowa for the first time since 1993 and LSU for the first time since 2008. UConn did not advance to the tournament’s last weekend for the first time in 14 years.
“Years ago, it was always the same teams, and maybe there was one team that maybe surprised someone,” Staley said. “The game has grown so much that really anybody can make it to the Final Four because of the parity of our game.”
Much of the credit goes to teams taking advantage of the transfer portal and the ability to attract players with name, image and likeness opportunities, say longtime women’s basketball observers who have longed for the day when the potential for upsets in the women’s tournament rivals the men’s.
“For somebody like me, who has been around forever, this is exactly what we had hoped would happen,” said Debbie Antonelli, college basketball and WNBA analyst and former NC State forward (1982-1986). “The quality of play has always been good.”
An even playing field
Following No. 8 Ole Miss’ upset of No. 1 Stanford to advance to its first Sweet 16 in 16 years, head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin took the podium with tears in her eyes.
It had been 14 years since a No. 1 seed hadn’t advanced to the third round, and she used her platform to send a message to other players and coaches.
“As females, we’re taught to hone it in,” McPhee-McCuin said. “I get attacked all the time, ‘Oh, I’m too bold, I’m too this, I’m too that.’ But the coach of Fairleigh Dickinson said on TV that he was going to beat Purdue and he did it, so we need to normalize women being competitive and having dreams and goals and wanting to win.”
Message received. Twenty-four hours later, No. 9 Miami took down No. 1 Indiana, only the second time since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1994 that two one-seeds were eliminated before the third round.
When Ole Miss pulled off the upset, it was a special moment. When Miami did it, all signs pointed to a new trend.
Since the 1994 expansion, the women’s tournament has averaged 5.61 upsets in the round of 64. Some years have had as many as 10, while others have had just one.
The men’s tournament has averaged 6.2. Both tournaments exceeded their averages this year and had the same number of first-round upsets at seven.
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But this year was different in that the upsets continued beyond the first two nights of play for the women, with four lower seeds advancing to the Sweet 16. In the men’s tournament, five lower seeds made the third round.
Antonelli attributes the turning point in parity to the rise of teams in the middle of the Power 5 and Big East conferences. Rather than mid-major programs commanding the attention, teams such as Miami, Ole Miss, Villanova and Colorado emerged as surprises this season.
“That’s where the true parity is because that’s where all the money and resources are,” Antonelli said. “The Power 5 invests incredible amounts of money on women’s basketball, and when we start seeing programs that are in the middle of the pack of their own conference race starting to have some success and pop through in a tournament, that’s the exciting part.”
And it’s not only the middle Power 5 teams making a statement. New faces have emerged at the top this season, with two programs — Indiana and Virginia Tech — joining the 28 teams that have earned No. 1 seeds since the expansion.
Impact of transfer portal, NIL
Many coaches credit NIL opportunities and the transfer portal, which launched in 2018, for creating parity among teams and allowing them to quickly reach national prominence.
The 12 teams that have pulled off upsets so far this tournament average 5.25 transfer players per roster, with Florida Gulf Coast having the most at 10.
“It’s made people change the complexion of their team right away,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said Tuesday during the news conference. “You have a need, and you don’t have to wait a couple years to recruit to that need. You can go right away into the portal and get somebody that’s experienced and somebody that’s proven.”
That’s exactly what Virginia Tech coach Kenny Brooks did.
Four of his seven rotation players this year are transfers, including starters Taylor Soule (Boston College) and Kayana Traylor (Purdue). Brooks already had Elizabeth Kitley and Georgia Amoore, two of the nation’s top players, and used the portal to fill the gaps that helped Virginia Tech reach the Final Four for the first time.
“You can transform your team into a contender overnight,” he said.
LSU, which has six transfers on its roster, accomplished something similar by bringing in Angel Reese - the nation’s fifth-leading scorer this season - from Maryland.
Hand-in-hand with the transfer portal comes NIL, which has allowed Power 5 programs that invest in women’s basketball to bring in some of these stars.
A report from SponsorUnited found that Reese has more NIL deals than any other player in college basketball, with 17. She is trailed by Haley and Hanna Cavinder, twins who transferred from Fresno State to Miami and led their team to the Elite 8 for the first time in program history. They have 16 NIL deals, per SponsorUnited.
“For some women, this is a huge earning power stage of their career and maybe their only opportunity to really earn money from their careers, because they may not want to go overseas, and they may not quite be at the WNBA level,” TCU women’s basketball coach Raegan Pebley told The Dallas Morning News in October. “So some will make choices of where can I go to maximize my opportunity to earn.”
A new normal
While coaches and players agree parity is a positive for the sport, some wonder why the issue has been a prominent topic of conversation.
“On the men’s side, we never really have a discussion about parity, even though the same teams usually pop up,” Antonelli said. “Last year, we had Duke, North Carolina, Villanova and Kansas in the Final Four and didn’t hear anyone complaining about parity.”
The women’s game faces pressure to produce upsets similar to the men’s game, in which mid-majors No. 13 Furman and No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson defeated traditional powers No. 4 Virginia and No. 1 Purdue this year.
While the men’s tournament had a historic year with 19 upsets, the women’s game didn’t trail far behind with 14. The main difference has been in the types of teams and in which round.
The men’s upsets continued through the Elite 8, in which No. 9 Florida Atlantic, No. 5 Miami and No. 4 UConn reached the Final Four. The women did not have any upsets beyond the Sweet 16.
Antonelli said she believes it will be some time before mid-major programs experience consistent success in the women’s tournament.
“We’re not ready for the Fairleigh Dickinsons,” she said. “That’s not where our game is. I don’t even think we have 68 really good teams. … But the true parity is the middle of those power leagues spiking through.”
And with ratings and viewership at the center of these conversations, the progress is paying off. ESPN reported a 27% increase in average viewers from the first round in 2022 to 2023 and a 30% increase in the second round.
As attention shifts toward the women’s tournament and the top talent makes its way to Dallas this week, coaches across the game say the parity this year is a sign of how far the sport has come.
“It’s grown,” Staley said. “We have sold our Final Fours, really sold out. ... The product is so much better, top to bottom.
“It’s beautiful.”
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