TAMPA — Assorted local dignitaries, as well as officials from ESPN and the NCAA, convened late Tuesday morning for hype along the Hillsborough River.
Specifically, they came to build up the Women’s Final Four, which needs very little, considering the 2024 women’s title game out-drew the men’s championship. Yet they gathered at Sparkman Wharf Lawn to promote the contests — April 4 and 6 at Amalie Arena — and smorgasbord of ancillary events surrounding them.
There will be a concert (April 5, Curtis Hixon Park), headliner to be announced soon. A “Tourney Town” at the Tampa Convention Center (April 3-6) with interactive games, giveaways, food and merchandise. A red-carpet ceremony welcoming the two national finalists to the arena a couple of hours before tipoff. Tampa mayor Jane Castor called it “the next great event that happens to our city.”
Yet as the dawn of March beckons, a degree of mystery still looms over this spectacle. Thanks to meticulous planning and coordination between the area and NCAA, we know what’s coming.
But we still don’t know who’s coming.
“You don’t know,” said longtime ESPN women’s hoops analyst Carolyn Peck, who coached Purdue to a national title in 1999. “A lot is going to have to do with what bracket you’re in, and matchups. There are so many different styles now.”
Welcome to the diverse new world of women’s college basketball. A sport once slathered in Tennessee orange, or that featured the Philly accent of Geno Auriemma as its soundtrack, possesses arguably more parity than ever.
“Well let’s see, I’m only 58, so I’m not going to say it’s the best it’s ever been,” NCAA women’s selection committee chairperson Derita Dawkins said, “but it is certainly head and shoulders above where it’s been probably in the last 10 years for sure.”
When Texas reached the top spot of the Associated Press poll for the first time in 21 years Monday, the Longhorns became the third team to be ranked No. 1 in as many weeks. By contrast, in the 2018-19 season — the last time Tampa hosted the Women’s Final Four — only three teams (Notre Dame, Baylor, Connecticut) held the No. 1 spot all year.
Hence the reason Water Street — site of a radical makeover this millennium — served as a fitting site Tuesday for a sport whose landscape has undergone an equally drastic alteration. A generation ago, Tennessee and Connecticut combined for 16 national titles in a 22-season span (1995-2016).
In the last six seasons (excluding the COVID year of 2020, when no tournament was held), five different schools have won national titles.
“I think that No. 1, it’s the talent level — early preparation for kids — and I think that has a lot to do with the WNBA,” said Peck, who emceed Tuesday’s gathering.
“They now have female role models they can look up to, so they started working at an early age. Used to, in my day, they’d say, “Who do you compare your game to?’ And it was a man. Now you have players, and the older ones were looking at Dawn Staley. The younger ones, it is Diana Taurasi, or you just name all these other females now that they’ve had (as) role models.”
Of course, myriad other factors — the transfer portal, better across-the-board coaching, heightened TV exposure — have contributed to the current state of parity, which includes no undefeated team in Division I, and only one one-loss team (UCLA).
All of which makes for March mystery.
“For the committee, it means watching a lot of games,” Dawkins said. “Because you can’t count anybody out.”
Contact Joey Knight at jknight@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Bulls.
Women’s Final Four
April 4-6, Amalie Arena. TV: ABC/ESPN
Semifinals: April 4, 7 p.m., 9:30.
Final: April 6, 3 p.m.
Information: wfftampabay.com
