I've been trying to collect my thoughts for awhile, and I'm going to try, because I've seen some ask how the NCAA could get this so wrong after what just happened with the women's basketball tournament.

Well. The simple answer is you have to truly care about women's sports.

I've seen some people say the NCAA is treating the volleyball tournament and the women's basketball tournament like chores, or like a second-rate event.

Which, fair. It does feel like that.

In a "typical" year, there are host sites for these tournaments. (Men's included, of course, I'm aware.)

So these host sites are going to do what they can to make the experience as great for the visitors as possible, right?

While the NCAA certainly provides guidelines to make each host site comparable to the others, you're one of the teams at the Nebraska host site and Nebraska's going to be the one rolling out the red carpet.

You get the experience because of the host, not the NCAA.

In 2021, the NCAA was forced to act as the full host of all of these. That's not to say they handled everything perfect before. Not at all.

But in a year where the NCAA itself has had to be the FULL HOST, they've shown what does and doesn't matter.

So you can yell about revenue and this or that (and some certainly have, yada yada), but the NCAA has simply shown that women's sports have not been their priority in a time when the spotlight was firmly on them.

And that sucks.

It's not surprising, but it sucks.

And that's where I'm at right now. I'm mad. It should be better than this for women's sports. The athletes deserve it to be.