BATON ROUGE, La. — Following her team’s 54-point victory in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, LSU coach Kim Mulkey said the talent disparity in women’s basketball is shrinking.
Tell that to Texas Tech.
The premise of Mulkey’s conclusion was the increase in teams capable of winning a national championship. That may be true, but the Tigers proved Sunday just how wide the gap is between those contenders and the rest of the country.
Even with the strides the Lady Raiders made this season — returning to March Madness and winning the most games since 2002-03 — Tech coach Krista Gerlich said reaching the next tier is impossible without the luxuries LSU enjoys.
“I’m just gonna say it like it is,” Gerlich said, “in this day and age, we have to have more resources to be able to fund a team. I have no idea what LSU’s cap is, or what their total amount is for their team, but ours is probably an eighth of it, if that. I don’t have a million-dollar player on my team. And that doesn’t mean anything except that there’s a huge difference in the level of talent, and we have to have that investment to be able to compete at that level.”
The 2-seed Tigers set an NCAA record with their 16th 100-point game in the 101-47 rout of Tech. That wrapped up a weekend of 50-point wins, but the dominance wasn’t limited to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Three lower-seeded teams reached the second round of the tournament, none worse than No. 10. Eleven first-round games featured a 30-point margin of victory. Perhaps that’s to be expected, but four teams won by at least 23 points in Sunday’s second round contests, too.
Maybe that shows how many elite-level programs there are. After all, LSU is three years removed from winning a national title and was nearly a No. 1 seed this season. The Tigers advanced to the Sweet 16 for a fourth consecutive campaign.
Mulkey said Saturday there were “only about three teams” that could’ve won it all during her playing days at Louisiana Tech in the early 1980s. She cited LSU’s run to its first title as a 3-seed as an example of growing parity. The coach also said its a feel that the field is more even.
“I honestly do see the gap closing a little bit,” Mulkey said. “… I just think there are more schools that can win a national championship today than there were 10 years ago, 20 years ago. The gap and the scores, I don’t analyze it and break it down to tell you in detail, but just from my naked eye and having been around this game … I just think it’s getting better. I do.”
A canyon remains beyond those in the top tier.
“There’s a big gap between probably (teams) one through eight, maybe eight, and eight through 64,” Gerlich said. “There’s a big gap. You saw it today, right? We’re a seventh seed, which had we won a few more games in our conference, we might have been up to a 4-seed, but if I remember correctly a 4-seed in this conference (Oklahoma) lost by 40 to LSU just about a week ago.”
Gerlich agreed the level of parity is increasing. But to get the Lady Raiders among the contenders, where the coach’s ultimate vision lies, the program needs more financial investment, she said.
“There’s more parity coming,” Gerlich said, “but there’s still the upper echelon of NCAA Division I women’s basketball, and then there’s the rest of us. We have to be able to fund our program in the NIL space and the (revenue)-share space to be able to compete at the level to win championships.”
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: How big is the women’s basketball gap to national contender? Ask Texas Tech
Reporting by Stephen Garcia, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
