They’re Not Riding the Wave

CINCINNATI — On the muddy shores of the recently swollen Ohio River, in Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum, women’s college basketball celebrates its Big Dance, starting tonight.

The twin themes are a repeat of last year’s:

--Big crowds, getting bigger.

--Big bidding wars, just ahead.

This Final Four’s two sessions sold out in days a year ago, even faster than the 1996 event, when there were 23,291 at each session in the Charlotte Coliseum.

Almost everywhere you look at the women’s college game, attendance is booming--except in the Southland and most notably at UCLA and USC.

This season, three schools--Tennessee, Connecticut and Wisconsin--broke the single-season attendance record, Texas’ 1989 average of 8,481.

Tennessee averaged 10,500, Connecticut 10,474 and Wisconsin 8,536.

Tennessee (27-10), the defending national champion and surprise conqueror of Connecticut Monday, is here for its third consecutive Final Four appearance and plays Notre Dame (31-6). Stanford (34-1) and Old Dominion (33-1) play in the other semifinal.

The most compelling case study in women’s basketball attendance is Wisconsin’s.

In fact, Wisconsin’s story is almost hard to believe.

Three years ago, Wisconsin sold 121 women’s basketball season tickets. This season the Badgers sold 4,880. There were three sellouts in the 11,500-seat field house. Next year’s goal: 10,000 paid per game.

What happened?

Jane Albright-Dieterly is what happened.

She took over the program in 1994 and went to work. She was everywhere, speaking to civic groups, service club luncheons, schools--anyone who would invite her. And everywhere she went, she sold tickets.

Then she sent her players into the community, to practice good citizenship . . . and sell more tickets.

“I require our players to work six hours a month in the community in their off-season, and three hours in-season,” Albright-Dieterly said.

“We’ve done a lot of work with groups like Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army, Meals on Wheels, and local hospitals.

“Basically, you just work at it. You go into the community, you make friends, you ask them to come to your games and they go get their friends and bring them too. Pretty soon, it’s a mania thing.”

Can anyone do this?

“Sure, I think so,” Albright-Dieterly said. “We just applied a little Midwest work ethic, and we did it.”

Are you paying attention, UCLA and USC?

Apparently not.

Nationally, 28 Division I women’s teams averaged crowds of 3,000 or more this season. Ten were over 5,000.

The women still have a long road to travel, of course. Last weekend’s crowds at three of four regional championship games were abominable. Two, Notre Dame-George Washington at Columbia, S.C., and Florida-Old Dominion at West Lafayette, Ind., drew fewer than 3,000.

But 1,000 fans is a big crowd at USC. UCLA draws slightly better and finished 59th in attendance this season. USC didn’t make the top 85.

Run this by anyone in the athletic department at either school and:

“Well, you know this is an entertainment capital . . . lots to do here, cable TV, movies, pro sports . . . then there’s traffic. . . . “

Sorry, it doesn’t wash.

It’s a matter of deciding to go to work and do it.

*

In tonight’s first Final Four game, sizzling Stanford, which demolished a good Georgia team in the West Regional, plays the Portuguese Olympic team . . . er, Old Dominion.

Stanford is 25-0 since an 83-66 loss at Old Dominion in December. Georgia Coach Andy Landers was particularly impressed with the Cardinal.

“They just come after you in waves,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Stanford (34-1) was a favorite to win it all even before volleyball player Kristin Folkl rejoined the team late in the Pacific 10 season. She has averaged 11 points and 7.3 rebounds in the tournament.

Old Dominion (33-1) is led by three starters who were schooled in Portuguese basketball. Ticha Penicheiro has been the point guard on Portugal’s national team since she was 14.

She and teammate Mery Andrade played for the same club in Portugal, Santarem. So did Clarisse Machanguana, originally from Mozambique.

Meanwhile, Tennessee Coach Pat Summitt, making her 10th Final Four appearance, brings in a typical March Volunteer team--slow starting but fast finishing. In December, Tennessee lost to Stanford in Knoxville by 17 and had four losses before Southeastern Conference play began.

For Notre Dame (31-6), the headliner is a player who, as a prep star in Bloomington, Ind., was thought to be considering three schools: Indiana, Indiana and Indiana. After all, Beth Morgan’s father, Bob, is Indiana’s baseball coach, and Bob Knight once worked with her on her shot.

But Morgan, now a senior, chose Notre Dame and has an 18.5-point scoring average.

Women’s Basketball Notes

Center Kara Wolters and Coach Geno Auriemma, the key figures in their team’s 33-1 season, combined for a Connecticut sweep of the Associated Press national player of the year and coach of the year awards. Wolters, a 6-foot-7 senior, averaged 17 points, eight rebounds and 2.8 blocks while playing only 26 minutes a game to become the third consecutive Connecticut player to win the award.

Mimi Griffin, ESPN’s women’s basketball analyst, says Tennessee’s brilliant sophomore, 6-2 Chamique Holdsclaw, is better than anyone who has played the women’s game, including Cheryl Miller. “Just look at that glow in her face in the UConn game, like she knew they were going to win, and she gave that glow to her whole team,” Griffin said. . . . ESPN will soon announce a preseason women’s doubleheader matching Stanford and Connecticut, and Vanderbilt and Iowa for next December.

USC senior Tina Thompson is talking to representatives from the American Basketball League and the Women’s NBA. “I don’t have an agent yet and I don’t know that I will,” she said. “I’m just trying to learn a lot more than I do about both leagues. I’ve only seen one ABL game, on TV. And I want a situation where I can also play in the 2000 Olympics.” That might tilt her in the direction of the ABL, since the WNBA for now is playing in the summer.

A year ago, marketers of the women’s game got a lot of mileage out of John Wooden’s comment that “the best pure basketball I see today is from some of the better women’s teams.” Now this, from former Cal coach Pete Newell: “The dunk has cost the men’s game shooting accuracy on the short-medium jump shot. If you took the 10 best men’s and women’s shooters, had them dribble into the key and take a pull-up, eight- to 10-foot jump shot 10 times, I’d bet on the women.”

Stanford’s Kate Starbird is said to be looking for $250,000 in the soon-to-begin bidding war between the ABL and WNBA for her services. . . . The eight-team ABL, after saying Long Beach, Anaheim, Long Island, Minneapolis and Las Vegas were on its short list for two expansion teams for next season, is now saying it may remain at eight and postpone expansion to 10 teams until 1998.

The WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks recently sent out a season-ticket flyer to Laker season seat holders, asking them to purchase Sparks seats. The team’s goal is 5,000 paid per game in a Forum reduced to 8,000 seats by a curtain run around the concourse. . . . Add crowd counts: The ABL says it finished its first season with an average of 3,536 a game, adding that attendance surged at the finish. The February average was 4,163. New England was the leader, at 5,008; Columbus, Ohio, was last at 2,682. The league had 10 crowds of 6,000 or more. Columbus’ crowds swelled, too, at season’s end, apparently sparing the city the spectacle of having its league championship team moved.

Valerie Still, the 35-year-old playoff most valuable player for the Columbus Quest, is the younger sister of Art Still, onetime NFL defensive end. The 6-3 Still, who has a year-old son and who played 12 pro seasons in Europe, said all season it would be her last year of pro ball. But after a brilliant playoff title series with Richmond--14.2 points, 8.5 rebounds--she is waffling. . . . Next year’s women’s NCAA regionals sites: Dayton, Ohio; Lubbock, Texas; Nashville and Oakland. Final Four: Kansas City.

Former UCLA player Natalie Williams established herself as one of the two or three best players in the American women’s game this season. Playing for the ABL’s Portland team, she averaged 12.5 rebounds, nearly four more than runner-up Taj McWilliams of Richmond. She finished with 400 rebounds, 60 more than McWilliams, despite playing i eight fewer games. She was the ABL’s No. 5 scorer at 17.3 points a game.

Schedule

At Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati

Today’s Semifinals

* Old Dominion (33-1) vs. Stanford (34-1), 4 p.m.

* Notre Dame (31-6) vs. Tennessee (27-10), 6 p.m.

Sunday’s Championship

* Semifinal winners, 5:30 p.m.