When I was on my sophomore high school basketball team, I remember anxiously getting into my uniform and preparing for the game (and for cheering from the most comfortable seat in the gym – at the end of the bench).

After our pre-game talk, we’d exit the locker room fired up and ready to run out onto the court for warm-ups.

With our warm-up tape blaring, we’d hit the floor and run around the court before breaking into a pair of lay-up lines.

The thing was, no one, outside of a few parents and some students who might have missed the bus, was there to see any of this because it was 5:30 p.m., and the sophomore team played before the varsity game.

Walking into Lantz Arena for the women’s basketball game, I was reminded of my sophomore team’s pre-game routine because, just as it was for our games, the seats were empty.

And, just like in my sophomore games, the opening tip came before dinnertime.

The women’s team serves as the under-card for every weekday men’s Ohio Valley Conference game, with the games getting started at 5:15 p.m.

The thing is, unlike my sophomore team, the Panthers women’s basketball team is competing in a Division I sport. My team wasn’t.

Now I understand why the schedule is set up this way.

The OVC may be one of the worst geographically configured conferences in the country.

According to my great friends over at Mapquest (thanks for the check, boys), the drive from Charleston to Birmingham, Ala., home of fellow-OVC school Samford, takes 8 hours and 19 minutes – or approximately the same length as The English Patient.

With long bus rides like this, it makes perfect economic sense to send both men’s and women’s teams at the same time.

But what doesn’t make sense is the lack of exposure the women’s team gets because they play at a time when no one, except for the truly hardcore, would attend.

The problem is, I don’t know how to fix this.

I, like Michael Moore and cable news, don’t provide answers; we all just ask questions.