Easy On The Whistles, Let The Women Play

Memo to referees of women’s college basketball: You are guilty of sex discrimination.

It may be unconscious, but it’s real. The way women’s basketball games are handled is holding back the sport and ruining enjoyment of games for the fans.

I have watched women’s games for a long time and thought about this for months, and the results of the 17th annual Northern Lights Invitational basketball tournament this past week at the Sports Center merely confirm my suspicions.

Referees referee women’s college ball differently than they referee men’s college ball. And the reason is subconscious bias.

Women get called for traveling as often as they do because in their hearts referees don’t believe women can make the type of spectacular moves men make. If they see a move that fakes the defender out of her shoes, it couldn’t have been superior talent, but rather a violation of the rules. Tweet!

Similarly, men may bang and elbows and crash into each other under the hoop constantly with no foul being called, but if the women make the slightest contact, Tweet! Are the refs fearful the players are being unladylike?

The sheer number of times the whistle is blown during the course of women’s games is insane and maddening. If referees are the judge (and they are), women’s basketball players must be the most uncoordinated, klutziest athletes on earth. According to the arbiters of play, they can’t go five whole seconds without making a silly mistake.

Over the course of the first eight games in the Northern Lights, hosted by the University of Alaska Anchorage, a combined 80-plus fouls and turnovers were routinely called. A couple of games threatened the 100 mark. Granted, many turnovers involved unforced errors, but most revolved around referees’ stoppage of play.

Look at these numbers from the four opening-round games last Monday:

- South Carolina and Marist: 45 fouls, 44 turnovers.

- UAA and Arizona State: 51 fouls, 42 turnovers.

- Tulane and Xavier: 32 fouls, 40 turnovers.

- Holy Cross and Loyola Marymount: 49 fouls, 34 turnovers.

From the four games from Tuesday’s second round:

- UAA and Loyola Marymount: 47 fouls, 51 turnovers.

- Marist and Xavier: 34 fouls, 47 turnovers.

- Arizona State and Holy Cross: 42 fouls, 53 turnovers.

- South Carolina and Tulane: 35 fouls, 32 turnovers.

And from the first two games Wednesday:

- Loyola Marymount and Marist: 48 fouls, 36 turnovers.

- UAA and Xavier: 39 fouls, 48 turnovers.

Sure, you can find men’s games with similar stats, but watching the events unfold provide vastly different impressions in what’s called.

Women’s basketball is a better show than referees let it be.