They are the biggest fish in the entire country. Their non-conference schedule is one of the most demanding in the country. They routinely play Notre Dame, Baylor, Kentucky, Maryland and a bunch of top 20 teams year in and year out and play a lot of those games on the road as well. They started as #3 or #4 this season and then pummeled #2 Baylor and they got bumped to #1 over Notre Dame who was #1 and hadn't lost. UCONN then pummeled Notre Dame in South Bend and last week jumped on #4 Maryland in College Park (MD was game though, kept it under 10 which is impressive). Katie Samuelsson has sparked UCONN this year. She played a lot last year and looked lost at times and this year is avg. 20ppg. Napheesa Collier is avg 19ppg. Samuelsson is hitting 46% of her 3s and 2 other players are over 40% with 2 more at 37 and 38%. This team is different than last year's in that it goes 7 deep (last year was a 6 person rotation with a 7th in some blowouts).
I'm saying that Women's basketball is a "small pond". UCONN accumulates the best talent, and since there's no realistic incentive for the girls to go pro early, the best girls stay in school for longer. It just so happens they're staying at UCONN.
Got ya. Interestingly enough, outside of the top 15, parity was increased in women's college basketball almost more than the men's game.
They do get full scholarships in women's basketball unless a particular school chooses not to award the full amount of scholarship money allowed by NCAA rules. I do know there are schools that only award 12 full scholarships vs the 14 allowed by the NCAA. Men get 12. The school still needs to maintain their Title IX compliance making sure they award at least the same amounts for men's and women's athletes. Basketball, women's volleyball, football, and a couple other sports are what are called equivalency sports meaning you typically have a full scholarship for every roster spot. However most schools carry walk-ons. Coaches could divide a scholarship or two up. Baseball, soccer, track & field and others have a set number of scholarships that they usually divide among about double the roster spots. Baseball has something like 9.5 scholarships and usually divide it among 25-30 players. I had one of the coaches I work with share what the NCAA allows per sport and what the university gave him to divide amongst his 25 soccer players. So, yes, not all universities use the entire amount allowed by NCAA rules but in D-1 basketball that would be rare.
