Blue Star Basketball

Since coming back from the Final Four in St. Louis, I’ve been thinking about how readily some people regarded the whole event – and the college season as well – as an anticlimactic bummer.

The utter lack of suspense associated with Connecticut’s dominance has been quite obvious, and it’s the topic that frankly bored media types, even me, to a degree. It’s nothing against Geno and his fantastic players and their unbeaten season. We all offered this as a disclaimer.

A month later, I’ll go further and suggest this: It’s really about everybody else. And why none of the teams that could have given the Huskies something of a run in March (and April) even got to take the court against them.

This has less to do with the continued dominance of UConn (and Tennessee) than it does with the stunting of some elite programs that seemingly have everything they need to join the top of the heap. Either they haven’t managed to do it, or they have not demonstrated true staying power.

If you look at the recruiting landscape over the last decade, you honestly can’t say that the wealth isn’t being spread around rather generously. There’s no recruiting stimulus needed in this sport, despite the riches that keep rolling into Storrs and Knoxville. Kids are going to play at places where they can get playing time, develop their game with the pros in mind and maybe even start a new tradition.

More resources, better facilities and higher expectations are being handed to BCS-level women’s programs than ever before. Yet in that same decade, UConn and Tennessee have won seven national championships.

Even as powerhouse programs have been built, maintained or revived at places like Maryland, Baylor, North Carolina, Duke, Rutgers, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Stanford, LSU and Ohio State, they all remain firmly in a tier below The Big Two.

Instead of complaining only about how the sport is the domain of two programs, wouldn’t it be better to ask this: Why are they still in a league of their own?

This isn’t the same scenario as the early 1990s, when very few women’s programs had the institutional backing that exists now. There’s also an incredible amount of media and TV coverage and a professional league that didn’t exist then. As well as a grassroots game that is developing superbly athletic, talented and polished players for the college game in greater quantities than before.

And yet as this season rolled along and UConn’s inevitability became apparent, TV analysts and writers tried to explain that this was a “down” year in the women’s game. But aside from Tennessee’s struggles, should this have been the case?

Not many people expected the Lady Vols to be Final Four-worthy this season. That there’s a crisis of confidence now, and that Pat Summitt called a “Come to Jesus” meeting after their first-round NCAA loss, was a real shocker.

But is it any more surprising than what has transpired at Maryland since the Terrapins won the NCAA title in 2006? That group, which is now gone following the departures of Kristi Toliver and Marissa Coleman, never got back to the Final Four. Never.

How does a team with those players, plus Shay Doron, Crystal Langhorne and Laura Harper, not get back to the Final Four? And please don’t throw the “parity” word at me. That concept is still a mirage.

After Toliver’s colossal three-pointer in overtime against Duke in Boston, I was sold on the idea that Maryland had all the essentials to crack The Big Two. Brenda Frese demonstrated she was as good a recruiter and program-builder as anyone in the country.

So is Sherri Coale, and when she reeled in Courtney Paris and then a terrific supporting cast to go with her, I was convinced Oklahoma could get to the promised land.

The Sooners finally did reach the Final Four – in Paris’ last season – but like Maryland got ensnared in the Louisville buzzsaw.

I’m still flabbergasted by this, no discredit to Jeff Walz and his team.

I fully expect Maryland and Oklahoma to remain elite programs, but they have missed golden chances to become something more than that.

I’m flabbergasted that North Carolina and Duke have had plenty of opportunities to become juggernauts beyond the ACC, and haven’t closed the deal (the Tar Heels’ NCAA title was in 1994). Ditto for Rutgers, which may become best known for how it weathered the Don Imus flap.

I’m still flabbergasted that in this 10-year period under review here, LSU went to five Final Fours in a row, and never won a game. And that Duke has gone to four Final Fours without winning a title.

If you look at how widely this fall’s incoming talent is being dispersed, you’ve got to believe that this two-note tango can’t play on forever. While UConn and Tennessee aren’t going anywhere, there’s plenty of room at the top, if any of the following questions, among others, can be answered in the affirmative:

– Can Baylor, which had the best recruiting class of anyone, get back to where it was in winning the 2005 NCAA title? And stay there?

– Can Cal, which also has a great class following the most successful stretch in program history, do more than give Stanford a challenge in the Pac 10?

– Can UNC, with another outstanding group arriving in Chapel Hill, do better than pile up amazing talent that underachieves in March?

– Can Notre Dame, which welcomes Skylar Diggins, return to the heights that her idol and role model, Niele Ivey, scaled in leading the Irish to the 2001 national title?

– Can Ohio State, with Jantel Lavender, Samantha Prahalis and now Tayler Hill, get Jim Foster back to the Final Four for the first time since 1993?

If the answer is “yes” — and not just for a year or two but for the long haul — then perhaps we can put to rest the question that’s constantly asked but that isn’t the right question to ask.

It’s not about how UConn and Tennessee roll, but how – and even if – any others can really roll with them.