Customer Reviews

Inside Women's College Basketball: Anatomy of a Season

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The operative word is "Inside" as Inside Women's College Basketball Anatomy of a Season transports the reader inside the locker room, the coaches inner sanctum as well as onto the court. For a rabid fan or casual observer to get such insight into UCONN and Tennessee, the two premier women's programs in the country, is a treat. Access to C. Vivian Stringer, one of the legendary coaches makes the Rutgers story come to life the way she has elevated their program to the elite level. A look at the Sacred Heart program adds another dimension as the reader understands how a lower tier school competes for visibility and victories in a burgeoning women's college basketball environment. It is clear that Kent and his colleagues understand the women's game, but what is really enjoyable is how they communicate their excitement about and love for the game to the reader.

This is really a great book. I found the Chapters on UCONN and Sacred Heart to be the most interesting. Both are located in Connecticut. UCONN is coming off a National Championship, while Sacred Heart is just starting it's Div. I classification. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes college basketball.

Author really puts us inside the arenas and the lockerooms of the major Programs in the country to find out about the women's game.I especially enjoyed the suggestions for changes at the end.A must read for the casual reader or zealot of women's college hoops.

While this is a necessity for a women's hoops fan, it's not as good as it could be.

The first problem is immediately apparent: the book jacket doesn't describe the actual book. The jacket claims to be about the 2000-01 season (a much chronicled season in WCBB) and to cover UConn, Tennessee, Rutgers, UCLA, and Louisiana Tech. The book is actually about the 1999-2000 season and UConn, Tennessee, Rutgers, and Sacred Heart. Perhaps the jacket blurb would fit the paperback version?

It's also surprisingly shallow. I've seen books of similar size focused on one school: here, you have four schools with a chapter for recruiting and another for the tournament. It often seems as if it were written in a hurry, spewing game stats as it frantically rushes forward; Kent promises that the book would "also deal with the plethora of national powerhouse and not so powerful teams" that the power teams would face, but except for the asides, there's little from opposing points of view.

Far more could have been done with Sacred Heart, the least known of the four schools and the most compelling possible story. We don't even get to find out how they did in the NEC tournament! Tennessee also gets short shrift, and I think it's because both schools weren't covered by writers dedicated to the team- in fact, Tennessee seems to have been covered by a Connecticut writer. In comparison, UConn and Rutgers are covered very well.

Sloppy editing also plagues the book, with some passages mere rephrasings of previous ones. (And how exactly does one don a tattoo, as UConn's Kennitra Johnson supposedly does?)

But yes, there are positives to this book. The asides tangentially related to the profiled schools are the most interesting parts, such as the one on (now former) Pittsburgh coach Traci Waites. And I did enjoy reading about Sacred Heart, since I don't know much about them.

Overall: if you can find a copy cheap, as I did, buy it, but don't buy it new.