On thursday. images that Stanford sports performance coach Ali Kerschner posted on social networks showed a dramatic difference between what men’s teams competing in the NCAA Tournament in Indiana use to exercise and what women competing in the NCAA Tournament receive in Texas.
The image of the men’s gym in Indy shows several dumbbells, training benches, weight supports and bars and plates in a fairly large training space that is comparable to an average gym. The image of the women’s gymnasium, in turn, has six pairs of weights in total and some sanitized yoga mats – the last of which has been labeled with the NCAA Women’s Basketball brand. New York Liberty guard and former Oregon Ducks superstar Sabrina Ionescu helped to further draw attention to this disparity through Twitter.
As these images gained strength on social networks, the The NCAA ended up issuing a statement saying that the significantly smaller women’s gym was the result of “limited space” and that there were plans to expand that area, as more teams were eliminated as the tournament continued.
We recognize that some of the amenity teams would normally have access if they were not available within the controlled environment. In part, this is due to the limited space and the original plan was to expand the training area as soon as additional space was available at the end of the tournament. However, we want to meet the needs of our participating teams and we are actively working to improve the existing resources on the practice courts, including additional weight training equipment.
But some disagreed with the NCAA statement, especially the part regarding limited space in the area. One of those who did was Will Abrams, the Player Development Director of women’s basketball at Rutgers, who showed a video of a large, rather empty room with a training court, suggesting that there was actually room for a larger gym. This was also emphasized by Kendric Lindsey, creator of digital content for women’s basketball at the University of South Carolina.
But, going beyond the current inadequate configuration, it appears that the NCAA’s promise of a bigger gym for teams advancing in the tournament also doesn’t contain much water. As The Athletic’s Chantel Jennings pointed out, the amenities offered to teams that make Sweet Sixteen do not seem to match the number of players that will be playing at that point in the tournament.
It is unclear what are the next steps that the NCAA will take to solve this problem, if they are planning to approach things as they are currently, but if there is anything to take from this, it is that the organization was prepared to allow the disparity to exist as normal until that attention was brought to him.