A few minutes after connecticut defeated Tennessee 77-66 on Jan. 16 to lay claim to being the No. 1 basketball team in the land-O.K., the No. 1 women's basketball team in the land--the Lady Huskies were still on the floor of the University of Connecticut's Gampel Pavilion, basking in an impromptu serenade of Aretha Franklin's Respect by their large and loyal following. Said star senior forward Rebecca Lobo: "I could never imagine this day would happen: 8,000 people singing Respect, even though most of them don't know the words."
They were singing for the Huskies, but they could just as well have been paying homage to women's intercollegiate basketball. The sport has become a hot ticket, and not just in Storrs, Connecticut, where $8 tickets to the game against Tennessee were scalped for as much as $100. The women's version of the Final Four, to take place in Minneapolis on April 1 and 2, has been sold out for months, and March Maidness is such that ESPN, the Prime Network and CBS are all scheduled to cover the various stages of the 64-team National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament that began last Thursday. Total attendance for women's college hoops has almost tripled since 1984, growing from 1.3 million to a record 3.6 million in 1994.
It will be hard to top last year's NCAA final, when Charlotte Smith of North Carolina hit a last-second three-pointer to beat Louisiana Tech and give her sport a huge boost, but Smith will be back to try to head off the Huskies before their anticipated rematch with Tennessee's Lady Vols. (Connecticut remained undefeated by beating Maine and Virginia Tech last week in the East regional, while Tennessee downed Florida A&M and Florida International in the Mideast.) Says Mel Greenberg, a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Inquirer who is generally considered the authority on women's basketball: "I liken the game to a beautiful flower that is only now coming into bloom. Heck, when I first started covering the girls in 1976, 50 was a big crowd at UConn."
Indeed, the game is almost as fast paced, intense and entertaining as men's hoops. You want a great spin move? Try Michelle Marciniak, the tiny guard for Tennessee who carries a Michael Jordan picture in her sock and goes by the nickname--no kidding--Spinderella. Want to see a dunk? Earlier this season, Smith became the first woman in 14 years to throw one down during a game.
In some ways, in fact, women's basketball is superior to men's. According to Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, "It's more of a team sport. You can watch the strategy evolve over the course of a game." Her players are far closer to the ideal of the student athlete. They have a 100% graduation rate since Summitt took over the program in 1975. The women are also more accessible to the public than are the men. And because the tickets are cheaper, crowds at women's basketball games tend to be more family oriented. "We have more gray hair and more small children in the stands," says Teresa Phillips, the coach at Tennessee State.