When Stanford went down 63-62 last night to Texas A & M, it took several minutes to sink in. And when TV cameras showed the UConn Huskies in the stands, well, you felt that they had been forewarned: Watch out, things can happen.

It didn’t matter. Notre Dame didn’t care that they weren’t supposed to (really) win, that the script was for them to play well, but then give way to the anointed Huskies.

In sports, as in life, underdogs are delightfully dangerous – and even though Maya Moore scored 36 points, it wasn’t enough for a team determined to dog and harass – and score their own buckets. They took it 72-63, in a stunning upset that – yes – heralds a new era for women’s college basketball.

OK, this is not the first time there have been upsets (remember 2006 when Maryland’s Kristi Toliver won it with a 3-point shot at the buzzer in overtime against Duke?)

But this is the first year there have been enough upsets (Gonzaga over UCLA and then Louisville. Texas A&M over Baylor. Tennessee out to Notre Dame) – to throw our once easy-to-complete brackets out of whack. (No one in my pool predicted a Texas A&M-Notre Dame championship game. Did anyone in America?)

We now have it –March Madness instead of the March Mandate.

Yes, you feel for Maya Moore ending her UConn career without another championship. But that failure does not diminish her as a player or what she’s accomplished at UConn. Yes, there are new names on people’s lips this morning: Skylar Diggins, Natalie Novosel, Brittany Mallory; and for Texas A & M, Sydney Colson and Tyra White.

Maya may be leaving, but don’t expect her to disappear. This woman has a future on and off the court.

But there is more reason than ever to tune in and not just “follow” women’s college basketball, but watch. Carefully. Because anything can happen.

By Laura Pappano

If coverage of the men’s side of March Madness seems to be playing at every hour on every available screen, it’s not your imagination.

Not only did the number of men’s teams in the tournament increase from 64 to 68, but the NCAA TV deal with CBS and Turner Broadcasting means that for the first time ever, every single men’s game is being broadcast nationally.

That’s great. But amid the saturation of men’s college ball, the women’s game is drowning. Stanford vs. North Carolina at 11:30 p.m. EST? C’mon.

When Christine Brennan argued that the women’s tournament should run during a different set of weeks than the men’s, my first reaction was, “No way!” It felt like women’s sports relegated, yet again, to playing in the off-season.

But with the men not just dominating prime time, but leaving room for little else, it may be time to rethink the timing.

Yes, it used to be a problem that the men had network TV and the women only had cable. But it no longer matters as much who is broadcasting. It does, however, matter when the games are broadcast. With men’s games crowding prime time and prime days – Wed., Thurs., Fri. Sat. – leaving women Sun., Mon. Tues., viewer availability is outrageously lopsided.

That’s a shame. Competition in the Sweet Sixteen is as compelling as it’s ever been.  Commentators on the women’s side have a smart, polished presentation. And – yes – even early and mid-rounds feature screaming fans in the stands.

So here we have one of the best, highest-profile showcases of women’s sports and female athleticism in America — and it seems to hardly exist.

If we understand that airtime, debate, public discussion, workplace debate – buzz – is a form of power (remember press coverage and talk when UConn was making it’s run for UCLA’s unbeaten record?), we ought to think hard about this valuable athletic resource and find a way to get it the airtime and attention it deserves.

Everybody knows that President Obama is a big college hoops fan. But most of his public affection has focused on the men’s side (click here to see a photo of him with his March Madness picks). Today, however, he had the chance to enumerate the dominance of the University of Connecticut Women’s Basketball team — this particular team with it’s 39-0 season — and the program with six of the last 15 NCAA titles and three undefeated regular seasons. (click here for a photo of Obama and the team).

He made the point in his formal remarks (before inviting the players to shoot around on his private court beyond camera view) that “for this team, an undefeated season just wasn’t enough — they became the first team in NCAA history, men or women’s, to win every single game by double digits, which is just an unbelievable, unbelievable statistic.”

He also emphasized their academic success and the program’s 100-percent graduation rate (see what happens when college isn’t merely a ticket-punch-stop on the way to the pros?)

But most striking was the way he talked about this team as the father of daughters: “And thanks to players like each of these women and those who came before them, our young women today look at themselves differently, especially tall young women, like my daughters.”

There was more — about the “positive example to which our daughters can aspire — to be healthy and active, to be part of a team.”

He offered familiar feel-good phrases that 1) are actually true for the NCAA female athletes he mentioned and 2) are rarely applied to male college athletes and 3) make me woozy.

It is the constant conflict between — well — being Bad Ass and being virtuous. Being viewed as serious stuff and being framed as grown-up versions of girls in ponytails playing community sports on Saturdays.

YET — we need not have this conflict. Frankly, it’s time for college sports programs, fans, public and media to treat female athletes — not like little sisters — but equal partners with men’s programs. (And in the process, maybe we could sprinkle the guy’s side with a little of that role-model, college-graduation dust).

For those who love to bring it all back to markets (and colleges are NOT markets), consider that women’s college basketball offers a serious growth opportunity in expanding fan bases (note: big mailing to fathers of tall girls). The men’s side may be maxed out. (How much more can people honestly pay for tickets — or the opportunity to purchase tickets?)

Maybe next year, the White House can also share a photo of the First Family with their picks for the 2010 NCAA March Madness tournament — on the women’s side.

Now that would be Bad Ass and virtuous.

A reader writes: “…there is also a big gap between the quality of play for men’s and women’s college b-ball…and thus the price disparity.”

Absolutely, men’s college basketball is a fast-paced exciting game and male players on average may be bigger and faster and jump higher than female players. And yeah, the McDonald All-Stars would beat top women’s teams. But then, the L.A. Clippers (18-58) would beat any of the top men’s college teams by 50 points.

The matter here is not about bigger, faster, stronger, but about competition because that’s what we pay to watch. People leave blowouts at halftime. We watch college ball – men’s or women’s – because – well – it’s college ball. It doesn’t matter that it’s unlikely that a single player on Villanova will end up in the NBA; they were fun to watch because they brought a good competitive game to their opponents (at least while the run lasted). And the women do that, too.

THE TAXPAYER ISSUE: Let’s play fair with public benefits

Before we start creating derivatives based on the worthiness of various college men’s premium seating plans, let’s get hold of a key fact: College basketball exactly ISN’T a free market system. March Madness bracket betting (plus those massive salaries for men’s coaches) camouflage the fact that college sports are part of educational institutions that receive public funds and tax benefits as non-profits.

I’m not sure many female taxpayers – if they thought about it – would be so excited about using their earnings to feed differential treatment of women based on the historic fact that men’s teams have been more heavily supported, promoted, and publicized. The presumption that fans don’t want to watch women’s basketball is based on…what? That they are scheduled, priced, and promoted as lite fare?

THE TICKET PRICE ISSUE: Not a call to scalp the fans…!

Just because I point out that, controlling for attendance (some folks may have missed that part), most colleges charge twice as much to see men’s basketball as women’s basketball is not a mandate to double the price of women’s tickets. Rather, it’s a call to look at what we’re saying when we accept such a huge pricing disparity (hint: it’s about more than tickets).

Interestingly enough, several D1 colleges have an appealing alternative: They charge the same to attend men’s and women’s games. (Check out Louisiana Tech, Campbell University, Central Connecticut State University, Grambling State, University of Hartford, just to name a few…) Maybe if tickets to college basketball more reflected their role within a university setting – rather than as mini-pro enterprises – more fans could appreciate (and attend) both games.

Here’s an experiment you can do at home: Google “March Madness” and see how many entries actually mention a women’s championship. Just about any place you click, March Madness is talking about one playoff – and it’s all about the guys.

Even the NCAA site takes some navigating to get to the women’s play, while the men’s pops right up. The difficulty is only compounded if you actually want to watch the women’s games. The NCAA site offers a “Podcast Central” and “Post Game Central” for the men while the women’s side offers a PDF of printed remarks from a March 16 press conference. Come on, guys, is this for real?

Let’s hope the CBS College Sports All-Access (the video tab on the NCAA site) adds some of the D1 women’s programming to its schedule in the next few days.

The crux of the problem, of course, is that all of those office pools, online-bracket contests – and all the water-cooler yammering, friendly texting, and TV-watching – is all about the men’s contest because (SUPRPRISE!) most folks bet on the men’s games.

It’s time to change that.

Start your own office/workplace contest for the women’s 2009 “March to the Arch.” You can do it online or score it by hand. Download the bracket here, get your friends to fill it out and get it to you before play begins on Saturday. There are several ways to score, but one approach:

The winner will be selected based on a system of points awarded during each around for correct picks: Participants will be awarded one point for each victory correctly predicted in the first round, two points for each victory correctly predicted in the second round, three points for each victory correctly predicted in the third round, four points for each victory correctly predicted in the fourth round, five points for each victory correctly predicted in the fifth round and 10 points for correctly selecting the national champion. The winner of the contest will be the person with the most points.

Print out that bracket, pass it out, and start talking about the women’s games and post your comments here. This is not just about sports. It’s about women’s power and status. This is a political act!