I know it's not feasible for a major reason-- men and women play in the same arena's at pretty much every level-- but I've always thought you lower the rims to 9 feet for the women's game. They use a smaller ball, supposedly because it makes ballhandling and shooting easier. But what are the strengths of the women's game already? Ballhandling and shooting. I highly doubt that, given the time to acclimate to the regular (mens) sized ball, women wouldn't be able to shoot and handle just as well. As a matter of fact a good friend of mine was a manager at Uconn, and one day we watched Diana Taurasi shooting around with a men's ball. She did fine, including hitting several from NBA 3-point range.

But if you could lower the rim, everything would improve. It would counter the two biggest disadvantages women have compared to men, height and leaping ability. You'd make the inside game easier, leading to more emphasis on pounding it inside (and better action if you ask me.) There would be more of an advantage to getting it down low.

And, yes, you'd have more dunking. I understand the arguments for not trying to make the women's game into the men's game. But the fact is that dunking would greatly increase the interest of the average fan. At 9 feet, many WNBA and top college players would be able to dunk, and some would be able to dunk in traffic. A fastbreak would be that much more exciting, and the first time a player crams on a player from a rival team in the tournament-- that would really get people interested.

I know it's not likely to ever happen, and it would take time for current players to adjust their shooting. And you would need many many more adjstable rims out there. But I've been thinking about it for years and I bet it would be great for the women's game.

I'm with Ricky Gervais of The Office on this one. It's just really hard to keep an old series from going old and stale. Short formats just seem to work better for tv. For me, one of the saddest things ever has been to see the long sad decline of the Simpsons. Seasons 2-8 or so were some of the most inspired comedy I've ever seen, a real pop culture touchstone. And since then, there has been TEN years of terrible terrible episodes. Its awful the way greed has damaged that shows legacy.

Creighton wasn't one of the top four teams in a lesser conference. FSU had one (1) real quality win. Maryland underperformed all year. Look the ACC, compared to its history, was awful this year. If you aren't much better than .500 in a league featuring Wake Forest, Miami, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Clemson and Georgia Tech, you don't deserve to play in the tourney-- especially if you lose in the first round of your conference tournament.

And you REALLY don't belong in the tournament if you don't have a great record with a schedule with out of conference teams like Louisiana Monroe, Texas South, BGU, Stetson, Cambell and Jacksonville, like FSU; or if you go 2-8 against the RPI top 50 and 2-7 on the road like Maryland; or go 12-7 in a smaller conference with a non-conference strength of schedule of 84 like Creighton.

To me the team with the biggest gripe is Michigan, but then, don't go 3-7 over your last 10...

that Florida State or Creighton would have lost by 20 to whoever. One of my roommates went to State, another to Creighton, and we have the league pass thing that lets you see a ridiculous number of games, so I've seen quite a lot of those teams. And they were awful. Florida State padded its record with out of conference patsies and still couldn't get itself a decent record. Creighton was just bad, bad, bad.

Uconn, Villanova, Pitt, West Virginia-- I'm willing to bet they all move on.

I actually know someone who worked on this shoot. They're all real balls.

Great analysis as always. (haha one of the articles about the Uconn/Duke game from 2004 King and I got into a good argument about over email at the time, this was before the letters to the editor feature).

As far as Uconn flipping the switch goes-- I grew up in Connecticut so you can guess where my loyalties lie. Its been a disturbing trend the last few years with the whole "turn it on" mentality. I think its been a result of the great recruiting; having that much talent does tend to create complacency. I will say, though, that I think its much easier for teams with dominant size (like Uconn) to turn it on and off then guard-oriented teams. (I dont think Villanova could do it, for example.) It'll be interesting to see whether the Huskies can respond and really play up to their talent level.

I don't have any sympathy for big conference teams that fail to make the tourney. A team like Cincinatti or Michigan starts out with a huge advantage in terms of getting into the tournament-- despite all the gains made by mid-major conferences, big conferences still enjoy a healthy head start on making it into the tournament (and thats probably a good thing.) Cincinatti, you don't like it? Don't lose your opening round game in the Big East tournament. Do better than .500 in conference play. Florida State? Don't try to hang your whole resume on one (admittedly impressive) win over Duke. Schedule tougher out of conference competition.

If you're in a major conference and you don't make the tournament you've got no one to blame but yourself.