Women buried by Maryland
- Thread starter CappyNU
- Start date
The overall level of women's play in the B1G has not been nearly the caliber of the men's play for quite a few years now. Maryland has been dominant because they usually have good teams, but also because the B1G women's league is not nearly the quality of the SEC or ACC in most years.
Not so sure about that. Last year the women beat Duke, Boston College, and Xavier on their way to a 26 - 4 record and a sure spot in the Dance before it got cancelled.
That's one year. The overall quality of women's basketball in the B1G has consistently been inferior to that of the SEC and ACC in recent years. How often do you see B1G teams not named Maryland in the top ten?
Typically, the ACC, (Big East), SEC, Big 12, and PAC 12 have been dominated by one team, which has won the National Championship. Connecticut, Tennessee and USC, Baylor, and Stanford come immediately to mind. I would argue that the Big Ten has better balance, but I really don't know how BIG teams have fared in the Tourney in recent years. Maryland is 20 and 2 - maybe they'll win it this year.
South Carolina, Notre Dame, Oregon, Louisville. Lots of other teams in those leagues that have fared better than the BigTen.
In 2019, 5 BIG teams made the Tourney and all of them won in the first round. Iowa got to the quarters and others won 2 games. The usual suspects made the final four. This year, 5 BIG teams are ranked in the top 25, and NU has beaten all but one of them. Once again, Connecticut or Stanford will probably win, but to say that the BIG lags far behind these other conferences is simply not correct. They lag behind a few powerhouse teams who win all the time - not other conferences.
I didn’t mention Tennessee or Mississippi State or Texas A&M or Syracuse or Duke. These are more SEC and ACC teams, which were the leagues mentioned in the original post. All of the teams I mentioned have gone farther in the tourney than any BigTen (pre-Maryland) team. Just having teams making the tourney doesn’t mean the league is strong. The BigTen has some historically decent teams in MSU, Iowa, and Purdue, but it’s really not very competitive in the upper echelon of women’s basketball.