We here in Connecticut, to tweak a line from that sage known as Barbara Mandrell, were women's basketball when women's basketball wasn't cool.

You remember those days, no? We would attempt to introduce the world to the game we'd grown to love, hoping sports fans and media outlets in other parts of the country would have an epiphany over Epiphanny (Prince).

And now the universe is left to chuckle at the circumstances under which our wish has been granted. Oh, they're talking about women's basketball more than ever now. Except they're killing UConn in the process.

Loosely reworded, the latest narrative goes something like this: UConn got to play the regionals in Bridgeport because the NCAA, craving the most tickets sold, conspired with the UConn Sports Network (otherwise known as ESPN) to get golden girl Paige Bueckers home to Minneapolis for the Final Four, where the Huskies are sure to deliver the highest ratings. It's a win-win for everybody but poor N.C. State.

The collateral damage in all this has been UConn, which aside from delivering a full arena and two-overtime drama in Monday's regional final, really had no say in its bracket placement, unless you believe that Oliver Stone ran the women's committee.

More likely: Gordon Gekko ran the women's committee.

Hammering UConn for the location of the weekend's regionals doesn't scratch the problem where it itches. Those with a hornet in their headgear (bee in their bonnet) over UConn's advantage need to interrogate the NCAA, not drill the Huskies.

Full disclosure: Nobody with even a hint of fairness should dispute UConn's advantage. UConn, a No. 2 seed, played in front of more than 10,000 loyalists against N.C. State, a No. 1 seed which was the regular season and conference tournament champion of the best league in the country this season. The Wolfpack deserved more respect. The game deserves a more equitable standard.

ESPN's Monica McNutt, asked about the location of the game Monday on "Around The Horn," replied with, "it's crap." And while we'd expect a Georgetown-educated young woman to summon more cultivated prose for such issues, well, she wasn't wrong.

The NCAA is neither the first, nor the last, institution to choose money before equity. That's what happened here. Had UConn been placed in some other region, somewhere fewer than 10,000 seats would have been sold and somewhere fewer than 10,000 seats would have been occupied for an ESPN audience.

The newfound media to women's basketball might occupy their time better by demanding that what befell N.C. State never happens again. And we here in Connecticut, rather than sounding idiotic in trying to soften Bridgeport's influence on the outcome, should be sounding the trumpets to move the women's game forward — as we have for the last 30 years.

See, a funny thing has happened as the moral outrage builds nationally over the unfairness of it all. This tournament has actually illustrated a glimmer of hope for success at neutral sites — and thus lessen the need to rely on the Bridgeports of the world in the future.

All the evidence necessary for the tournament's evolution came in the Spokane region. Perhaps you missed the Stanford-Texas regional final Sunday night in Spokane, drawing 7,739 fans to the 12,210-seat arena. An arena in neutral territory with two-thirds capacity — a full lower bowl looked good on television — is a sign of progress. Spokane ought to be in the permanent roll call of potential cities for future regionals.

We may assume from our perch on the east coast that Stanford and Spokane share close western proximity. They don't. The Stanford campus is 909 miles from the Spokane arena. By comparison, a 909-mile drive from Hartford ends in Chicago. Surely, nobody here would consider Chicago anywhere near UConn.

Translation: Spokane wasn't an advantage for either team, yet still attracted an appreciable crowd. That means the evolution of neutral sites, which would happen one city at a time, has a city in the rolodex.

That's good news.

Next year, the women's tournament will be played in two — not four — regional sites: Greenville, S.C. and Seattle. I'll eagerly await the apocalyptic howls from UConn fans over South Carolina's geographical advantage at next year's regionals. Absolutely no different than UConn playing in Bridgeport in 2022.

This is why Connecticut, rather than trying to justify what just happened, should be encouraging the NCAA to find more Spokanes of the world. Nobody around here is going to like it when poor Paige and Azzi might have to beat South Carolina in South Carolina a year from now.

But for now, to accuse UConn of anything sinister because the NCAA chose money over equity is absurd. Just as South Carolina won't be to blame next year when the NCAA's greed is at work again.

I'm told by friends at ESPN that the line doesn't exactly form to the right for cities bidding to host regionals. Media members need to use their platforms to encourage their nearby cities to do so. Because yammering about what happened Monday night is useless.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro