"Underdog"? But they won by 40!

In the world of sport, I find the underdog is always worth rooting for (with some key exceptions to you New York Giant and Michigan State fans). Last night I watched a couple of great basketball games where #4 UCLA feel to a less than stellar Washington Huskie team and #3 UNC needed a complete collapse at the foul line by Clemson to overcome a 15-point second half deficit (where they never led until the first overtime) to win in 2-OT.

While watching these games I was flipping over to some women's college b-ball game on ESPN2 and I realized that the upset seems very common in the women's game. When we're talking about upsets we're not talking about #20 beating #10 in nip an tuck game, we're talking about a top ten team getting blown out, at home, by an unranked opponent. Can someone explain this?

The worst massacres happen early in the season when the pollsters clearly were overestimating or underestimating teams and it takes a few weeks for things to settle down and for the cream to rise. This happens in all college sports from women's b-ball to D-I football (or FBS if you must...but that is whole other topic). You think a freshman will make a difference and they don't or maybe the loss of that key senios hurt team chemistry more than you thought, whatever the reason it is all a bit of a guessing game out of the gate so yuo need time to let things really set in and you get to know who the true players are.

But in women's basketball (and I will confine it to just women's basketbal not women's sport in general), there seems to be no settling down. Right to the very end highly-ranked teams get annihilated by those who are technically "underdogs". It's staggering. Are the pollsters just that bad at assessing women's talent? With the plethora of former players and coaches who are on these sports programs giving intelligent and insightful breakdowns of the women's game that notion seems highly unlikely.

You almost never see this type of destruction in the men's game. Rarely does a team ranked considerably lower win by ten points, nevermind the occasional 40 point blowouts I see in the women's game. While on the topic of blowouts, its also odd that some of the higher eschelon teams (yes, Mr. Auriema, I'm talking about you) seem to take pleasure in beating teams by 70. You never see this in the men's game unless UNC is playing Chaminade out in Hawaii. But its a routine happening in women's b-ball and not just in Storrs, CT.

I think they are linked I think the same thing that allows teams to win by 70 allows teams to beat "favorites" by 40. I just can't place my finger on it. Do women basketball players just enjoy sticking it to their opponents more than male athletes? I find that hard to believe, knowing the attitudes of some of the male athletes today. It's not a talent issus when the "underdog" wins because they are supposedly the worse team...that's why they are the underdog.

Do women fold under the pressure of a large deficit? UNC was down 15 last night but put it together and came up with a big win. I find it hard to believe that the women's team would have just folded their tent and ended up losing by 30. An athlete is an athlete and they all have competitive fires that will not go out just because they are losing by double-digits.

It is one of the great mystery of sports. And what makes watching it so much fun. You never know what to expect.