Vince Grippi: With women’s basketball on the rise, Saturday’s games at McCarthey Athletic Center will get deserved shine

Gonzaga forward Yvonne Ejim, left, works on her low-post moves against teammate Lauren Whittaker during practice Friday at McCarthey Athletic Center. The Zags host UC Irvine in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday.

It’s only been a little more than 40 years since the NCAA deemed women’s college basketball – and all other sports – worthy. Of attention. Of money. Of a championship.

Actually, it’s been four decades since the organization that represents America’s beacons of education actually educated itself.

That women could, you know, play sports. Competitively.

Fast forward to today. To, say, SportsCenter on any given winter night. When undefeated South Carolina is playing. Or Caitlin Clark breaks a record. Or, maybe, when Michael Wilbon takes to his PTI soapbox and declares the NCAA’s women’s game is a better product than the men’s.

Yep, women’s college basketball in 2024 is having its moment. More than that, actually. Its ascension. Its overnight sensation 50 years in the making.

It’s about damn time.

Pardon the profanity, but patience has never been my strong suit. Why has it taken so long? And why is it still not where it should be?

Gonzaga will host an NCAA Tournament game Saturday evening. In its home arena. While a subregional taking place down the road features three teams from Alabama, a couple from the West Coast and a whole bunch of basketball fans without an affiliation with any of the schools. All part of a multibillion-dollar televised enterprise that sends millions to conferences.

Fine. The men’s tournament has earned the cachet and the cash.

The women? More than a few games this season were must-see TV. Sports-talk fodder. There’s been debate. Interest. The networks have caught on. The NCAA? Not so much. Then again, when has the organization looked forward?

Let’s put a microscope on Saturday’s games in McCarthey Athletic Center.

The Zags (30-3) survived their way-too-tight losing performance in the West Coast Conference Tournament title game to still earn a top-four NCAA Tournament seed. And hosting duties. Where they will play UC Irvine, which makes this one personal.

Before the NCAA saw that a dollar or two was possible with women’s athletics, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women ran the show. Despite Title IX already being more than five years old, there was a clear divide between the men and women. Even so, teams like Idaho, where all-time women’s college wins leader Tara VanDerveer began her run to 1,115, took to the court and competed.

In obscurity. And poverty. I watched as my soon-to-be wife Kim played basketball at Irvine. There was one coach on the staff. Little money for travel, uniforms, scholarships. It was unacceptable. It was also accepted.

But journeys begin with small steps. The NCAA ingesting the AIAW in 1981 was part. Federal enforcement of Title IX, despite the wails from knuckle draggers, another. Great players, invested coaches, trailblazing administrators, they all played a part. It was a slow process, years in the making.

Lynne Roberts, whose fifth-seeded Utah team plays Saturday night’s second game against South Dakota State, told a story Friday about her experience playing at Seattle Pacific as the 1990s wound down. A game up the road at Western Washington. A shared bus trip with the men. A stop on the way back. The men went into a Pizza Hut and ate. The women’s team?

“We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the bus,” Roberts said. “We knew it was weird, but we were just like, ‘That’s the way it is.’ ”

Thankfully, that experience has gone away. Well, sort of. During the COVID-19 bubble tournaments, there was a national firestorm after an Oregon player shared photos of the women’s weight room and contrasted it with what the men used.

The NCAA apologized and rushed to improve things. And maybe, just maybe, a light came on, allowing hoop fans to take notice the game was changing. Despite the treatment disparities, the game was getting better. The players were too.

Gonzaga assistant coach Stacy Clinesmith starred at Mead High about the time Roberts was playing at Seattle Pacific. She was good enough to be recruited by one of the West Coast’s best programs at the time, UC Santa Barbara. But she admits there is no comparison between then and now.

“Women’s basketball has comes leaps and bounds from when I played,” she said Saturday, sitting in the GU women’s well-appointed locker room. “It’s really remarkable how far the skill has come in the last 10 years, 15 years, much less when I was in college.”

It’s that skill that has helped elevate the game. Clinesmith has seen it.

“I get to coach high-level players,” she said, mentioning all the point guards who have come through the past 10 years, including this year’s stars, Kaylynne and Kayleigh Truong.

As the game’s grown, so has the televised opportunities. ESPN and the NCAA have a new $920 million, eight-year deal, but it covers more than just the women’s tournament. And may be a bargain for the network, considering Iowa’s win over Ohio State in a recent Big Ten title game on Fox attracted 3.39 million viewers. The only men’s game with more on the network was Michigan State’s Thanksgiving battle with Arizona.

The average number of viewers for Fox’s regular-season men’s games this season, according to the network, was 946,000. The women’s games topped 980,000. It may not be parity, but it’s closer than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich days.

“To see the national recognition that these teams and players are getting from everybody,” is rewarding, Roberts said. “It’s not just women’s sports fans, right? It’s the dude at 24-Hour Fitness. He actually knows who women’s basketball players are. I think that’s really, really cool.”

Will the curve continue?

“Are we on the right track?” Clinesmith asked. “There still is some growth in equality between the men’s and women’s games, and with putting us in a position on TV where people can see what kind of product we put out, but we are on the right track, for sure.”

Roberts admitted she didn’t see the magnitude of the change coming back in her PB+J days.

“But it’s exciting to think about what in 20 years it’s going to look like,” she said. “I’m honored and humbled to be part of it.”