Women’s Basketball Is a Renewed Flashpoint for an Embattled N.C.A.A.

On Thursday, Emmert said the N.C.A.A.’s critics were right to judge the organization by its marquee events.

“They have to be the benchmarks that we judge gender equity by,” he said of the basketball championships. “If we’re failing at that level, we’re failing across the board.”

Lynn Holzman, who played at Kansas State and rose to become the N.C.A.A’s vice president of women’s basketball, told coaches on Wednesday that she expected “pretty substantive changes,” but she did not elaborate.

And so the women’s basketball community waits. They are accustomed to it, they say, frustratingly accustomed to it. Over the past two weeks or so, some mulled over what the game could have been if the A.I.A.W. had survived.

“Is it time to separate?” Kim Mulkey, Baylor’s coach, said. “I don’t know. Can we sustain it financially? I don’t know. But those are discussions that need to be had at the higher levels by people who are a lot smarter than me.”

VanDerveer said she simply wanted to see more input from players and coaches, offering them “more of a voice so that someone can say, ‘Hey, the weight room doesn’t make any sense.’”

And then there is Rush, the pioneering coach at Immaculata, who said she believed the N.C.A.A. had “worked well” and even proved “transformational” for women’s sports.

But she had a caveat.

“I’m not sure better is the answer.”

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/04/sports/ncaabasketball/womens-basketball-ncaa-tournament.html