Whistles' Anonymous Meeting #1: The Battle of the Sexes

[PGCougar]

Originally posted by rainmaker
...Even so, I'm struck by one observation, and that is that I see differences between hs and college that are much greater in girls than in boys. Others here, so far, havent mentioned those.

For instance, in hs girls, there ARE a lot more held balls, and the lower you go in age and ability, the more there are. But in watching all the college ball this weekend I see far, far fewer held balls thanin the hs game. In fact, it's nearly equal to what I've seen on the men's side.

Again, in generalities... The big difference you allude to is probably due to the depth of the talent pool and the number of players at each level. Although there are equal numbers of boys and girls playing at both the HS and College levels, there isn't an equal depth of talent. Since the talent pool isn't as deep for girls as it is for boys, you often see situations where boys that are pretty good players getting cut from their JV and Varsity teams while on the girls side you see players that are sub-par for JV and Varsity making their teams.

So in HS, the talent difference between the best and worst players on any squad is more noticeable in girls ball than in boys. Result is inconsistent skill levels througout girls HS ball. But the 50 to 1 cut to make it to college weeds out those marginal players on the girls side. This probably explains the improved play at the college level when compared to HS levels and below. In fact, if you look at the mid-major D1 programs versus the top tier D1 programs, you see far more parity in boys than in girls. Again, I believe this points to the depth of the talent pool.

It's late so I hope this made sense...

[Edited by PGCougar on Mar 31st, 2005 at 02:48 AM]