One of those coaches, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, has drawn the lion’s share of attention, but it’s actually on the women’s side where the duel of coaching titans is taking place.
Stanford Cardinal’s Tara VanDerveer takes on Connecticut Huskies’ Geno Auriemma. These two coaches lead their teams in a sport that I’m not sure many people understand is quite popular and has statistically gotten more exciting over the past decade.
In case it’s not clear, VanDerveer and Auriemma are historically good. VanDerveer has been coaching at the collegiate level for over 40 years and has 1,157 victories to his credit. She’s only lost 258 games, meaning her teams have won almost 82% of the games she’s coached.
The 68-year-old VanDerveer has been good through all eras. Her first two titles with Stanford came in the early 1990s — and her third came just last year. Auriemma, who turned 68 last month, has slightly fewer wins (1,148) but he was arguably even better than VanDerveer. He’s only lost 149 games in 37 seasons, which means he’s won almost 89% of the time! Auriemma’s teams have also won a record 11 NCAA women’s tournaments.
And like VanDerveer, Auriemma has been pretty consistent. His first husky team to win a title did so in 1995, while his last title was in 2016.
Some may not recognize the greatness of VanDerveer or Auriemma because women’s sport has traditionally not received the same recognition as the men’s team in some circles.
For its part, the NCAA was previously cited for differences in the way it provides its players with amenities at NCAA tournaments. Just this year, the NCAA even branded the women’s tournament with the nickname “March Madness,” a move the organization had previously resisted. However, it’s important to note that there are many fans who have seen how good VanDerveer and Auriemma are. Last year, over four million people tuned in to see VanDerveer win her third title as head coach. That was the highest-rated NCAA women’s title game since 2014. In fact, women’s college basketball has held its viewership during a time when many shows — with the exception of the NFL — have seen some viewership shrinkage. The odds last year were higher than the championship 20 years before.
Also keep in mind that this game was broadcast on cable, meaning it had a smaller pool of potential viewers. The 2021 Women’s Championship was by far the top-rated cable program that night, effortlessly doubling the MLB game of the week that took place that same night. The 2021 NCAA women’s basketball championship had more viewers than any other NHL-Stanley Cup game televised partly on cable and partly on network television. It had only slightly lower ratings than the semifinals of professional baseball: the league championship series.
Perhaps one reason the women’s college game has stayed strong despite fewer and fewer people having cords is that the product has become more unpredictable. Statistically, people are more likely to tune in to a game where the winner isn’t easy to predict.
I spoke to FiveThirtyEight’s Neil Paine about this phenomenon. FiveThirtyEight has a stat called Elo that essentially assesses how good a team is and based on Elo how much one team should be favored over another team in a game.
What the Elo data shows is that the average favorite in NCAA women’s tournament play is now favored by fewer than at any time in the past decade. Another way to look at this is that the teams themselves have become more balanced.
This is notable because a long-standing criticism of the women’s tournament has been that the top teams are so much better than the other teams that it takes the ‘madness’ off the now-branded squads March Madness Tournament.
Compare the women’s side with what’s going on in the men’s group. The favorites in the men’s tournament are actually more favored than traditionally based on an average of 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 FiveThirtyEight, Stanford has a 56% chance of winning the game. Connecticut is close at 44%.
It should be a good game and it’s certainly hard to predict. Either way, viewers win.