One of those coaches, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, has received the lion’s share of the attention, but it’s actually on the women’s side of the game where the confrontation between the coaching titans takes place.
Tara Vandiverer of Stanford Cardinal confronts Gno Orima of Connecticut Huskies. These two coaches lead their teams in a sport that I’m not sure many people understand is very popular and has actually gotten more and more statistically interesting over the past decade.
In case it wasn’t obvious already, VanDerveer and Auriemma are historically good. VanDerveer has coached at the university level for over 40 years and has racked up 1,157 victories. She has only lost 258 matches, which means her teams have won about 82% of the matches she has coached.
Auriemma, who turned 68 last month, has had slightly fewer wins (1148), but is arguably better than VanDerveer. He’s only lost 149 games over 37 seasons, which means he’s won 89% of the time! Auriemma’s teams have
He also won a record 11 NCAA Women’s Championships.
And, like VanDerveer, Auriemma has been quite consistent. His first Husky won a title in 1995, while their last was in 2016.
Some may not realize the greatness of VanDerveer or Auriemma because women’s sports are not traditionally given the same esteem in some circles as the men’s side.
The NCAA, for its part, was
previously called for the disparities in how players give them versus women in the NCAA tournaments. It was
Only this year The NCAA named the women’s championship “March Madness,” a move the organization had previously resisted.
However, it’s important to note that there are plenty of fans out there who have seen how good VanDerveer and Auriemma are. Last year, more than four million people
tuned To see VanDerveer win her third title as head coach. That was the highest-rated NCAA women’s title game since 2014.
In fact, in an era when a lot of
Offers – Save the NFL – They saw some shrinkage in their audience, and college girls’ basketball maintained viewership. The ratings last year were higher than the tournament 20 years ago.
Also keep in mind that this game has been streamed via cable, which means it has a smaller pool of potential audience. The women’s championship in 2021 was pretty much the
Top Rated Cable Software That night, he easily doubled the MLB Game of the Week that was held on the same evening.
The NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament has more viewers than any of the NHL Stanley Cup games
In 2021, which was broadcast partly via cable and partly on network television. She had reviews
Just a little less From the Professional Baseball Semifinals: League Championship Series.
Perhaps part of the reason the college women’s game has been so strong even with fewer people owning a cable is that the product has become more and more unpredictable. Statistically, people are more likely to turn to a game where the winner is not easily predicted.
I spoke to Neil Payne of FiveThirtyEight about this phenomenon. FiveThirtyEight has an extension
Stat commonly known as Elo It mainly judges how good a team is and then based on Elo, how much one team should be favored over another in the game.
What the Elo data reveals is that the average favorite in the NCAA women’s tournament matches is now favored less than at any time over the past decade. Another way to look at this is that the teams themselves become an equal match.
This is notable because
One long term cash From the women’s championship is that the top teams are so much better than the other teams that they are moving away from the “crazy” it is now
March Madness Championship.
Compare the women’s side with what happens in the men’s segment. In fact, candidates are favored in the men’s tournament more than they have traditionally been in the average data going back to 2010. In other words, the games are more predictable.
Speaking of less predictable games, just look at Stanford and Connecticut. according to
FiveThirtyEightStanford has a 56% chance of winning the game. Connecticut is quite close at 44%.
It should be a good game, and it’s definitely hard to predict. Either way, viewers win.
