Hey Women's Basketball... change your schedule and thank Sully later

Seriously, women's basketball... you should be starting your NCAA tournament RIGHT NOW!

And not just this year, but every year the women's NCAA tourney should be in early March.

Actually it should be wrapping up now with the bulk of the tournament in February. Instead the women play at the same time as the men... which is great and empowering and Title 9 and all of that, but it also ensures that NOBODY is watching.

Think about it... between the end of the Super Bowl and the NCAA Final Four, sports is a wasteland.

There's NOTHING! The NBA? They are grinding along their regular season where at this point the only suspense is "Which team will rank 8th in the conference and be slaughtered by the Lakers or Cavs in the first round?"

The NHL? The Stanley Cup Playoffs don't start for a few months... when most sports fans all say at the same time "Christsake, they are still playing HOCKEY?"

People are so starved for sports that people show up to the NFL Combine.

That's right... the sports pages are so barren that NFL hopefuls running wind sprints count as news.

As for baseball, at this point it is time for split squad spring training games. You will forgive your pal Sully if he can't get into a game where the big leaguers who DO show up play only 4 innings and by the end, the game is played with a pitcher wearing number 98 1/3 and the hitter will start the season with the Lowell Spinners!

This year we did have the Olympics... but Johnny Weir and company can't be there every year to quench our sports thirst.

If the Women's Tournament were going on now, they'd be one of if not THE top story in sports.

I am not saying it will surpass football in popularity... but think about it in movie terms.

The biggest seasons for movie goers are the summer and Christmas time, and that's when the studios wheel out all of the blockbusters.

In some of the slower months, they release films that would get swallowed up against the blockbusters but do well with specialized audiences. Smaller horror films do well in the fall. A romantic comedy like Valentine's Day would get no press in the summer, but becomes a big hit in February.

So think of Women's basketball as the niche release during the lean month and a half between the Super Bowl and the Final Four.

And lest we forget one of the big reasons why the NCAA Men's tournament gets so much attention:

Office pools!

Why else do people who don't know Syracuse Basketball from Devry Basketball during the regular season suddenly get interested in March?

They are fun to fill out and it makes you pay attention to games you wouldn't normally notice.

That's right... women's basketball needs to embrace greed, gambling and the need to yell "in your face!" to a fellow office mate.

There's a month and a half wide open.

I'm not saying I am going to become a huge women's basketball fan, but it HAS to be more exciting that watching drills in the combine!