Gary Blair, the women's basketball coach at Texas A&M, left town with a trophy and a grudge.
Texas A&M beat Oklahoma 74-67 at Municipal Auditorium yesterday to capture the Big 12 women's tournament title. Victory tasted bitter to Blair, who spoke after the game about the lack of spectators (attendance: 3,120) and media coverage. Blair told reporters he'd like to see the event return to Dallas, where it was last held in 2006.
Blair was upset that he could not find scores and highlights from the women's tournament on the local news on Saturday night. He also complained about the "one page" of coverage in Sunday's Kansas City Star. (It was actually less; the page featured four advertisements, as well.)
Is Blair on to something -- or is he just greedy for attention after his team, the No. 4 seed in the tournament, upset previously undefeated Nebraska in the semi-final?
To be sure, the women's tournament took place in an especially large shadow on account of the fact that Kansas and Kansas State met in the men's tournament final at the Sprint Center on Saturday night. Also, Muni attendance suffered because the two best draws -- Nebraska and the No. 2 seed, Iowa State -- failed to make it to the championship game. (Attendance was 4,675 for the semi-final games on Saturday.)
Here's what attendance looked like at other major conferences' women's tournament finals.
ACC (Greensboro, North Carolina), 9,432
Big Ten (Indianapolis), 6,832
SEC (Duluth, Georgia), 5,854
Pacific 10 (Los Angeles) 2,432
Notes: Duke, whose campus is 60 miles from Greensboro, played in the ACC final, which took place before the men's tournament began. The SEC women competed at a different site than the men, who played their tournament in Nashville.
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Blair is also forgetting that Dallas tore down Reunion Arena, which previously hosted the women's tournament, last year.
The only venue that's capable of hosting the event is smaller than Municipal Auditorium.
As the article states, the final game was not meant for the fans that turned out. Just imagine if the men's final was Texas A&M versus Baylor. Hell, if that game was in Dallas, it still probably wouldn't draw a sellout.
Face it, women's basketball is not as popular as men's basketball. Women's sports are not as popular period.
Between the greed of the NCAA and the follies of Title IX college athletics is a cesspool.
On the other hand, Oklahoma City seems a bit worried that KC is too good of a place for he tournament: http://bit.ly/aOuuME
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