I\u2019ll admit: it took longer than it should have to get me here. I deemed the surge of popularity in women\u2019s basketball a Caitlin Clark-induced fad, a parental pat on the head from society to sports\u2019 little sister for one good dance recital. Was this mindset chauvinistic? Embarrassingly, yes. Undoubtedly. But Kentucky\u2019s win over Louisville may have changed my way of thinking for good, and I\u2019m now ready to jump on the women\u2019s basketball bandwagon if there\u2019s still room, and you\u2019ll have me.<\/p>\n
Part of the reason my interest in the women\u2019s game never bubbled above the surface was Kentucky\u2019s lack of excellence. Their unthinkable win<\/a> over South Carolina to win the 2022 SEC Tournament drew a double-take and a head nod but even that achievement wasn\u2019t enough for me to get fully on board.<\/p>\n The last women\u2019s game I attended in person was in December 2013, when the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams played a doubleheader against Baylor at the Cowboys\u2019 AT&T stadium. It was arguably one of the greatest women\u2019s games<\/a> of all time, going into four overtimes and breaking about every scoring record in the books. The \u2018Cats won 133-130 in a thriller that ended with only five players left on Baylor who had not fouled out.<\/p>\n And yet, instead of soaking in the magic I had just witnessed, I shared in John Calipari\u2019s annoyance that the game took so long and further delayed the subsequent men\u2019s contest that ultimately did not start until after 11:00 p.m. EST. <\/p>\n As I get older, I\u2019ve noticed my mental capacity for acquiring new interests narrows each year. Even when Kenny Brooks was hired, I did not fully dive into Kentucky women\u2019s basketball like so many others. However, after a few good recruits, and then a few more, and the sheer wall-to-wall coverage the sport received (shout out to KSR\u2019s Phoenix Stevens and Katie Hutchison), it became harder and harder to dismiss the swell of awesomeness bounding toward me like a big blue tsunami.<\/p>\n So, when Kentucky took on Louisville Saturday night, I found myself watching it with the same fervor as a men\u2019s game. My non-Kentucky fan friends who I was hanging out with that evening mocked how focused I was on my phone, watching with bated breath every free throw Kentucky shot in overtime on ESPN+. When the final buzzer sounded and Kenny Brooks finished off his first statement win<\/a> as head coach, my sports pride muscle flexed more than it ever has for women\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n I may not yet know which Clara pronounces her name like \u201cair\u201d and which one prefers \u201care,\u201d but I\u2019m here and ready to learn. Women\u2019s basketball is more than Caitlin Clark shooting 30-footers and Kentucky\u2019s program is piquing at the right time in history. If the women\u2019s game is generous enough to forgive my past thought transgressions against it, I\u2019m ready to spend several seasons making up for them. <\/p>\n Go \u2018Cats.<\/p>\n The post Confessions from a women\u2019s basketball fan convert<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ll admit: it took longer than it should have to get me here. I deemed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}