WBB: Has the narrative changed?

The notion of the “narrative” took hold late in the season, but I wrote about it all the way back on February 12, before the concept took hold. Here’s what I wrote then, after the win over Connecticut finally forced a slow change in national perception:

Perceptions in women’s basketball are slow to change, mainly because exposure is still limited compared to other sports. Not everyone has an SEC Network, which has been a godsend for fans of SEC schools. For comparison, the best conference this season is the Pac 12 and they have played some extraordinary games, but I haven’t been able to watch a single conference game because they’ve all been on the Pac 12 network, so named because only 12 people actually get it. But even with the SEC Network, resources and exposure are limited basically to what makes it to ESPN. And ESPN likes to focus on a few teams and players, not the daily grind of the season. As a result, so much is based on the box score (for example: Rhyne Howard getting a player of the week honor for scoring 28 points against the Gamecocks, an award clearly given by someone who only looked at the box score, since everyone who watched knew it was “insignificant” numbers) and preconceived ideas, because it’s easy to check the numbers, but harder to watch and analyze the game. (Another example: I saw Chennedy Carter on a player of the year list. No doubt she is a talented player, but she hasn’t played in a month and has basically missed the entire conference season. She can’t be a player of the year without playing.) That’s why, even though there are bigger games and better opponents, doing something against UConn carries extra weight.

At the time, I was merely making an observation, but it was an idea that became somewhat contentious as the season went on. Most of the discussion about changing the narrative was in regards to the perceived lack of respect the Gamecocks got from ESPN, and the perception that ESPN was promoting certain teams (okay, Oregon) at the expense of what was actually playing out on the court (ookay, South Carolina). By every objective measurement, South Carolina had the better resume, but you wouldn’t know that from watching ESPN.

“Sometimes you have to change the narrative,” Staley said. “Sometimes you have to take it upon yourself to put your kids out in front and let it be known that they have some special talent.”

That’s where ESPN’s dual roles as both an entertainment entity and a journalistic entity came into conflict. ESPN has invested significantly in women’s basketball, and it needs to promote the product to get a return on its investment. It does that by identifying a story (“narrative”) it can promote across the spectrum of sports fans. That, in and of itself, is a good thing. It is undeniable that ESPN has done more to promote women’s basketball than anyone since the 1996 Olympic team. But the flip side is that crafting an appealing, easily digestible narrative to draw in casual fans sometimes comes at the expense of detailed coverage.

That doesn’t mean that ESPN doesn’t provide nuanced coverage. Mechelle Voepel is a must-read for women’s basketball fans and is arguably the most important national writer in the sport. But she is one person, and her coverage tends to get lost under SportsCenter puff pieces. That leads to moments like the notorious “road wins over top 25 opponents in February” graphic, an instance where ESPN had specifically crafted a metric by using a limited sample size to promote Oregon and disqualify South Carolina’s accomplishments.

Since the season ended, Staley has talked about the lack of diversity in women’s basketball coverage in broader terms. She called on coaches to practice some self-promotion.

“I have an issue with our national media who choose to write about a narrative and stick with it even though it doesn’t fit,” Staley said. “There is a lot of room for great basketball stories that we missed this year and coaches have got to speak up. If you don’t, nobody is going to talk about your kids. I try not only to elevate our kids but elevate the game. There are a lot of incredible stories that we missed all season long. If I see something on Twitter I’m going to say something.”

Make no mistake, though, while the games were still being played, Staley was using the perceived lack of recognition as a motivational tool. There’s a reason she wears shirts that say “Gamecocks vs Everybody.” That is going to be a tougher sell next season.

ESPN released its first 2021 Bracketology on Tuesday, and South Carolina was the top overall seed (matched with old foe Vic Schaefer and Texas in the second round, naturally). In explaining the pick, Charlie Creme wrote: “South Carolina ended the 2019-20 season as the No. 1 women's basketball team in the country and is starting out our early look at 2020-21 in the same spot.” It already looked like ESPN’s narrative is going to be the Gamecocks. And then Thursday ESPN announced a documentary on the 2019-20 Gamecocks set to air on Monday on the SEC Network as part of a celebration of Staley’s 50th birthday. The Gamecocks are billed as “an exceptional 2019-20 women’s basketball squad at the University of South Carolina, its iconic head coach Dawn Staley and a staggeringly talented team” that was “on a national championship run that to many seemed inevitable.”

I’d say Staley got the narrative rewritten.

“You have to make people pivot and talk about you a little bit. If that has to be influenced by myself, by content that our Gamecock Productions puts out, we have to do it,” Staley said three weeks ago. “I know moving forward if the narrative isn’t about who deserves it on our side of things, we’re going to write our own narrative and we’re going to push it out.”

South Carolina isn't a hard sell, and like Oregon last season it will be easy to promote: big, passionate fan base, consensus number one team last season, extremely talented, charismatic players, and the Olympic coach.

So instead of graphics like Oregon’s ranked road wins in February graphic, get ready for more graphics like the equally infamous “Best SEC freshmen other than South Carolina’s” graphic. And Staley might not have to give up her “Gamecocks vs Everybody” sweatshirt either, because next season all the focus will be on South Carolina.