Without fail, almost every discussion of IU's very successful women's basketball team devolves into discussions about what level of men's basketball they could compete against. Eight billion threads about the men's team and it rarely comes up whether they could compete against an NBA team or a G-league team or a Euro pro team (spoiler - they couldn't). But someone says "did you see what the women's team did" and every smartest guy in the room crawls over each other to say "BUT THEY COULDN'T BEAT A 6TH GRADE AAU TEAM!!!"
Next time you find yourself pondering that question, my advice is to remind yourself it doesn't f'n matter because, in case you've not noticed, the women do not schedule games against men's teams.
What they have been doing recently is winning games, winning conference games, beating good opponents, winning post-season games, hanging a banner, getting ranked, staying out of the newspaper other than the sports pages, and generally being fun to watch.
I'm not one to say you should support the women's teams equal to the men's team because that's the equitable thing to do. I am one to say the current women's team has definitely earned the increased support they're getting and if you choose to not pay attention because you consider women's basketball a lesser version of the sport, then that's your loss.
Of course I'd also question why you've watched the men's team the last 20 years or so if the quality of basketball you're watching is of concern to you.