FAN NEWS (Jane Schonberger) - The best draft class ever and a new crop of WNBA players means big changes for the women's game. And perceptions are suddenly changing with more TV exposure.

'If this year’s collegiate season is any indication of what the WNBA will be like next year, we’re in for a treat'Wow! What an exciting week for women's hoops. On Sunday, the NCAA semi-finals played host to the finest women’s basketball teams in the United States. Tennessee’s game-winning shot with less than one second to play against LSU was one of the highlights of the Final Four.

On Tuesday, the Lady Vols won their second consecutive NCAA Women's College Basketball Championship. And on Wednesday, the coup de grace - top players from this year’s senior class landed a pro basketball career.

We all know the reputation that women have on the hard court. The game is too slow. The plays are boring. The players are gay. Fans don’t want to watch. But like most sweeping statements, this generalised perception of the women’s game is biased and filled with only partial truths.

Women play just as hard as guys do. They're just as competitive. They're just as intense. And there are so many other issues to discuss besides rumors about the game being full of lesbians. Perhaps the time has finally come to change the perceptions.

If this year’s collegiate season is any indication of what the WNBA will be like next year, we’re in for a treat. Fans showed up all year to watch stars like Sylvia Fowler, Candace Parker, Candice Wiggins and fresh sensation Maya Moore play at home and away. The games were hard-fought and intense. The Final Four games were packed with fans.

The championship game was broadcast on ESPN and seen by an average of 2,871,000 homes, up 34% from last year's 2,137,000. Wiggins’ slashing style on court was anything but slow. The 6ft 4in Parker proved time and again that girls can dunk.

Looking ahead, Parker will be a Spark for Los Angeles as their first round draft pick. Being selected by LA as their top pick in the WNBA draft was a dream come true for Tennessee’s star forward. Parker should make the Sparks a formidable team when she joins three-time WNBA most valuable player Lisa Leslie and former Tennessee teammates Sidney Spencer and Tye'sha Fluker.

Parker, who will also play for the U.S. Olympic team in Beijing this summer, won the Wade Trophy as a sophomore, which is awarded to the top women's player in the nation, as well as the John R. Wooden Award. She also was voted the Associated Press most valuable player this season. The Illinois native, who turns 22 on April 19, is the sister of Anthony Parker, a shooting guard with the Toronto Raptors, and is engaged to another NBA player, Sacramento forward Shelden Williams.

Parker will be joined in the big league by a number of former teammates. In fact, all five Tennessee starters got drafted. Shannon Bobbitt and Nicky Anosike were the first two picks of the second round, Bobbitt joining Parker in Los Angeles and Anosike heading to Minnesota. Alberta Auguste was drafted in the third round by New York.

The Lady Vols were part of a marquee draft that included such players as LSU’s Sylvia Fowles, who went second overall to Chicago, and Stanford’s Candice Wiggins, who went third to Minnesota. Parker, Fowles and Wiggins headlined a talented class that has been hyped since their freshmen year.

“I feel like its our class’s responsibility to raise the bar,’’ Parker said. “I think our class is capable of doing that. We raised the bar in college drastically.”

These women are role models for a new generation of players and fans alike. Unlike popular television shows such as "America's Next Top Model," or any other reality-based TV rivalries, the players all demonstrate that competition between women does not always have to come down to beauty and that aggression is just as feminine as grace.

That blend of feminism and athleticism is what makes these women Pretty Tough. They’re billboards for what young women are and can be. And we’re looking forward to a stellar season of women’s hoops. If you haven’t already, try catching a game