SAN JOSE, Cal. - It's taken awhile to get here after some 20 or so men's Final Fours over the past three decades. Taken awhile for all of us - sportswriters, fans, the media, even the players - to get to a women's Final Four.

But here we are. Just like Purdue's Boilermakers, we have finally figured out the way to . . . well, you know where they're playing this Final Four.

But it's easier for a sportswriter to get to where the women are than it is for the women to get where the men are. Although that's the question everyone seems to want to ask.

Are we there yet, the women wonder?

Not yet. Nor should they be. But the fact that they can legitimately ask the question now shows how far they've come in the 17 years since that 1982 women's Final Four debut in Norfolk.

"Just coaches and media, that's all," one of the San Jose Host Committee greeters tells the person relieving him at the Welcome Desk Wednesday in the lobby of the headquarters Fairmont Hotel.

And as you check out the arrival of Purdue's team at the Biltmore in nearby Santa Clara - players, coaches, band, cheerleaders and assorted fans and friends who flew out on a chartered jet from Lafayette - it's clear there's some work to be done.

The welcoming signs are large - but hand-lettered - and the gold in the pom pons the junior high kids are waving whenever a Boilermaker player comes or goes through the lobby aren't the old gold Purdue fans would recognize.

"Purdue UNIVERSITY," the lobby loungers tell one another when they ask just who these invaders from the Midwest are. Purdue - all by itself - might not be explanatory enough here. Neither is the schedule for when the games begin. "Tomorrow?" several offer. "Or is it Friday?"

It's Friday. And it's sold out. Tickets are awarded by lottery only, now. Just like the men. The women have been sold out since Sheryl Swoopes of Texas Tech celebrated her Michael Jordan moment in 1993 in Atlanta. And the year after next, they women will be in their first-ever dome - San Antonio's AlamoDome.

And it's all very nice here. And low-key. There was a special check-in table at the Biltmore for the Purdue players, loaded down with bottled water, juices, fresh fruit, nutri-grain bars, all sorts of high-protein goodies. Kelly Komara of Schererville and Lake Central High School, grabs a banana on her way to the team bus for practice.

It's already a long day for the freshman Boilermaker guard.

"We chartered right from Lafayette so I was able to go to my 7:30 class this morning," Komara says. And now it's off to practice, half-a-continent away.

But she's not here to catch up with the men, just to catch up with her teammates. And to be ready to beat Louisiana Tech in the second game (approximately 8:30, ESPN) Friday. With the winner playing the survivor of Duke and Georgia on Sunday at 8 p.m.

And all of this on the 20th anniversary of the benchmark NCAA TV basketball game of all time. You remember it. It's the one that made the men's Final Four more than just a sporting event, the one that featured Larry Bird's Indiana State team against Magic Johnson-led Michigan State in Salt Lake City and the one that - to this day - has the highest TV ratings ever for a college basketball game.

That was 1979. The women didn't play a Final Four of their own until three years later. And to this day, the men haven't gotten back to the numbers they managed then.

So why even worry about whether they've gotten to some arbitrary place the women are supposed to have reached by now. Or how long it will take them to get there.

They've done great. Getting sold-out was Step 1. For seven straight years now, they've managed that. They've also gotten a 64-team field, even if the first two rounds are played on the home courts of the top 16 seeds. And no underdogs - no Valparaisos or Gonzagas - have found a way to survive.

But until the top teams get better known, that can wait. Clearly, from the women's sports magazine they're passing out here to the TV and newspapers, the only name that's known - Tennessee - isn't here. And that is the good news. By next year, women's college basketball prognosticators are saying any of 20 to 30 teams could be in St. Louis.

But the downside of the increasing breadth of women's basketball talent is the lack of focus on the few teams at the top. That's what Purdue's top-ranked Boilermakers face here this year. They're No. 1 in the nation. At 32-1 with a Big Ten record 30-game win streak, a season-opening win over Tennessee and the nation's top backcourt in seniors Stephanie White-McCarty and Ukari Figgs and no one really knows much about them.

"The Stealth Team," the San Jose Mercury-News calls Purdue. Still eclipsed by the long shadow of Tennessee.

There's much talk of the Duke women - who join the No. 1 Duke men - in the Final Four for only the second time in history that two teams from the same school have done that. Georgia did it in 1983.

And much of the coverage of the Duke women is from the point of view of the Duke men.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Not now. But today and Friday, forget the men. Their time will come Saturday. Watch the women. Not because we say so. Or they say so. But because it's good basketball.

The best, actually. And you've got two teams to root for. With East Chicago's Monica Maxwell a senior star at Louisiana Tech, Northwest Indiana basketball fans have a second season - and another reason - to stay tuned.

Dan Weber is a Post-Tribune columnist. Call him at 881-3140.