“Show some respect to this living legend, this Hall of Famer … Arvydas Sabonis"

I do an amazing impression of the man on the right.

There are benefits to writing a blog instead of a syndicated column. One is what you are about to read.

See, I would be eviscerated for this column if it entered the national spotlight. I would be considered a woman-hater. While that may not be far off base, it’s not the case when it comes to athletics. I prefer women’s tennis to the men’s version (and not SOLELY because I enjoy watching the likes of Maria Kirilenko and Ana Ivanovic).

I’ll even watch the occasional women’s college basketball game. I’ve watched parts of two Baylor games this season, against Connecticut and against Tennessee. The latter prompted me to make my favorite joke of the year (Brittany Griner reminds me of a modern-day Wilt Chamberlain … not so much in how she plays, but more because she is a giant who is going to sleep with 20,000 women).

I also watch both college football and high school football. That doesn’t make them the same thing, which is why I find it so outrageous that people are talking about UCONN’s 88-game winning streak in the same breath as the UCLA teams of the early ‘70s that won 88 games in a row.

I mean, if people had spoken of De La Salle High School’s 151-game winning streak as breaking Oklahoma’s record for consecutive wins (47), it would have been laughed off, right? Well, you’d hope, but to me, that would have still made more sense than comparing UCONN’s women to UCLA’s men.

Ignore for a minute that the worst men’s college basketball team would obliterate the UCONN women. That’s not the point. I fully congratulate Geno Auriemma and his players for their accomplishment of beating other women’s teams.

But do you know why Auriemma has never taken a men’s college basketball job? Here’s a hint. It’s not because his current position is more rewarding from either a career standpoint or a financial standpoint.

It’s because the men play a completely different game. Different ball, different rules (You can use the whole shot clock to get the ball across half court. How stupid is that?) and different tactics.

Most damning, there is a completely different talent pool. See, this is something else that will sound chauvinistic, but if you are honest with yourself, you have to admit there are more good male college basketball players than female college basketball players. It’s not Maya Moore’s fault that this is the case, but most girls don’t grow up with a basketball underneath their pillow, to quote Cheech & Chong.

So while we should appreciate what the UCONN women have done, to compare them to the teams led by Sidney Wicks, Henry Bibby, Bill Walton (who I have always loved and will always love – I mean, who else uses a Walton quote for a title of a blog entry?) and Jamaal Wilkes and the competition they played is both blasphemous and ridiculous.

It has been over THIRTY years since a men’s college basketball team went undefeated. UCONN would have to go thirty years without losing to deserve a spot in history next to John Wooden’s great teams of the 1970’s.

Don’t be politically correct, be rational. Even if you’re a woman and that word isn’t a part of your daily vocabulary.