Whatever men hoopsters do, women do ... well, 'better'

Doyel: 'Seriously?'

On the telephone is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. I'm clumsily explaining my crazy idea: The women's college basketball game has practically caught up to the men's college game strictly in terms of quality of play.

Candice Wiggins has shown that she can play, and play well, with 41 points Monday. (US Presswire)

While a top women's team could never beat a top men's team because of obvious physical disparities, I explain, the skill levels -- ball handling, passing and yes, even shooting -- are now practically comparable to the men, a once unthinkable thought just a decade ago.

Suddenly, Cheryl Miller interrupts me. "What you're trying to say," says the former USC star, now an NBA reporter for TNT, "is the women's game isn't painful to watch any more."

"That's being brutally honest," Miller continued, "and that's why in the past I wouldn't watch the women's game until the Final Four. It was too ugly before then. It's changed. The women's game is now well played and really fun to watch."

So, I'm not a total dumbass?

"You're absolutely not nuts," Miller said. "When it comes to these games, the skill, the entertainment, the women are giving men a run for their money. It doesn't manifest itself in the ratings but it's true."

Women's college basketball, and to some extent the WNBA, were once mostly utterly unwatchable. It was like viewing 12-year-olds playing with greased pumpkins.

If you have not watched women's college hoops in some time -- and apparently many of you haven't, based on the viewer numbers -- a flood of elite athletes into the sport over the past decade or so has changed all of that.

There has been a mostly unnoticed yet significant growth spurt in women's college basketball. If you follow the sport it's impossible not to notice.

The skill level is actually impressive, the games are more fluid and -- dare I say it -- the sport is damn entertaining. The women's tournament this year, for example, has been just as exciting as the men's.

Women's college basketball is on the same level as the men in many, many ways.

The problem is the public hasn't caught up to the reality. The image of the old women's college basketball Miller described is accurate and that is the image most people have of the sport. It's outdated but many sports fans haven't been able to get past it.

The sport has evolved to the point where it's fluid and enjoyable but people's minds have stayed closed and stuck in the 1990s.