By Karen Bailis
It doesn’t get better than this. A knock-down, drag-out between No. 4 Tennessee and No. 5 UConn, the Yankees-vs.-Red Sox of women’s basketball, on national network TV. A dunk by player of the year candidate Candace Parker in front of a sold-out Hartford Civic Center. And a 70-64 Tennessee win powered by Parker’s 30 points, 12 rebounds and six blocks. That after Connecticut mounted a comeback after being down by as many as 18 points in the second half.
The classic matchup was the cherry on top of a triple-header of women’s college basketball on CBS that started at noon with a 53-51 nail-biter with No. 7 Ohio State victorious over never-say-die, unranked-for-now Kentucky. The second game wasn’t much of a contest – No. 1 Maryland defeated No. 19 Michigan State, 97-57 – but the exciting aspect was seeing the defending national champions’ balanced attack has only improved with the addition of transfer Sa’de Wiley-Gatewood.
Sure, I could have been outside enjoying the record-breaking 72-degree January weather in Central Park, but how often is there a triple-header of great women’s college ball on national TV? Fuhgeddaboudit. I popped open the window, turned off the phone and planted myself on the couch for six hours of hard-court magic. I could frolic in the park on some other spring-like January day, right?
It was like March in January inside the Hartford Civic Center. There’s no better rivalry in women’s college basketball. It started in 1995, UConn’s undefeated season, and the Huskies lead the series, 13-9, with the Vols taking the last three games. The players and the fans always circle it on their calendars when the schedules come out. It’s the biggest game of the regular season. In fact, for a few seasons, the two met twice in a home-and-home series as if they were conference rivals. The two Hall of Fame coaches, Tennessee’s Pat Summitt and Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma, relish facing off and matching game plans. They’re a study in contrasts, but both understand what they and this rivalry have meant for women’s basketball.
They’ve helped put The Game on the map, and this game was no different. If Summitt and Auriemma are the foundation, then Parker is the future. Though Tennessee (14-1) got off to a shaky start very early, the Huskies (14-1), lacking a superstar since the 2004 graduation of Diana Taurasi, had no answer for Parker. It was her 29th straight game in double figures. She was a monster inside. Auriemma threw different defenders at her, but she shook them off like they were standing still. Her defense, previously considered about the only weak point in her game, was evidenced by her six blocks and a steal. And her flashy yet smart play was on display on a fastbreak as she and Alberta Auguste trailed speedy point guard Shannon Bobbitt, who had just come up with steal. Bobbitt, a Bergtraum product, bounced a nifty pass between her legs to Parker, who with no room to score, flipped the ball over the defender to Auguste to go up 26-20 with 5:55 in the first half. Parker finished with a team-leading four assists.
The two teams were relatively evenly matched on the stat sheet. The difference came from Parker and the 1-2 3-point punch of Bobbitt and Sidney Spencer, who each knocked down three from behind the arc. The Huskies came up with only two three-pointers, but the second-half play of Charde Houston kept them in the game. She scored 16 of her 23 points in the second half and was the only Connecticut player in double figures.
Tennessee led 41-29 at the half, the first time Connecticut has trailed at the mid-point all season.
Parker had 16 in the first 20 minutes – she played all 40 – but her exclamation point came at 18:20 of the second half, when she took a Spencer steal in for the slam. It was her sixth career dunk and her fourth this season.
Parker is the fifth woman to dunk in a college game and has dunked the most. She joins Michelle Snow of Tennessee, Sancho Lyttle of Houston, Charlotte Smith of North Carolina and Georgeann Wells of West Virginia. Lisa Leslie is the only WNBAer to dunk in a game.
Problem was, the dunk, Parker’s first against a ranked opponent on the road, ignited Connecticut’s offense. The Huskies went on a 31-15 run, carried by Houston. A three by guard Mel Thomas – she scored Connecticut’s only two – tied the game at 58 with 4:47 left. UConn forward Brittany Hunter had the chance to take the Huskies’ first lead since early in the first half when she was fouled while tying the score at 60. She missed the free throw. UConn as a team shoots only 64 percent from the line.
Spencer’s three-pointer at 3:47 – her first basket of the second half – helped seal it for Tennessee. It was 63-60. She finished with 14.
After Parker made a Connie Hawkins-like acrobatic fastbreak shot that kissed off the backboard to go up 65-60 with less than two minutes left, it was over but for an amazing power shot by Houston from within a smothering Tennessee double-team. She brought it to 67-64 with :23.5 left, and it was as close as UConn came.
The game was classic UConn-Tennessee all the way, from Auriemma’s technical in the first half, to a large Tennessee lead that evaporated even more quickly than it was built, to a deafening crowd of 16,294, to outstanding individual performances and gritty team efforts.
"In some sense, a small sense, it's still the Red Sox and the Yankees. It still is," Auriemma said. "But there's still a lot more good things going on in college basketball now. That's just the reality of it."
I’d be surprised if one of these two isn’t still standing in the Final Four.
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Tennessee and UConn have long reaches. The other two televised matchups of the day featured teams that all have links to one of the two rivals. The architect of Kentucky’s remarkable turnaround of the past four years is coach Mickie DeMoss, who shared the bench with Summitt for 18 years. An assistant of DeMoss is Niya Butts, a two-time NCAA champion at Tennessee. Former UConn star Tamika Williams, also a two-time NCAA champ, is an assistant at Ohio State. OSU head coach Jim Foster hired Auriemma as an assistant when Foster was the head coach at St. Joseph’s (Pa.). Former Tennessee assistant Al Brown assists Michigan State head coach Joanne P. McCallie, as does Semeka Randall, part of Tennessee’s 39-0 national champion team in 1998. Point guard Wiley-Gatewood transferred to Maryland last year from Tennessee.
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Family tree aside, the UK-OSU meeting had the makings of an ugly blowout when Ohio State led 24-15 at the half after Kentucky (12-4) big Sarah Elliott was shackled with two fouls and two points. Elliott was the only Kentucky player with any hopes of containing Ohio State’s walking double-double, Jessica Davenport, who finished with – yes – a double-double, 24 points and 12 rebounds. Elliott came alive in the second half and finished with 18 points. She tied the game at 51 with 1:07 left. Marscilla Packer hit a jumper at the foul line with 16 seconds left to put OSU (13-1) up 53-51. Davenport deflected Samantha Mahoney’s last-second shot at tying the game.
Senior center Davenport’s 1,944 career points are second to the great Katie Smith’s 2,578, whose No. 30 is the only woman’s to hang from the Schottenstein Center Value City Arena’s rafters.
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The Michigan State-Maryland game was never close. Is there that much space between No. 19 and No. 1 in the women’s game? Yes. Especially a No. 1 team whose first six players average in double figures and a No. 19 team that lost its top two scorers in history to graduation last year. Still, the 97-57 final score was a bit of a surprise, but it was quite a show. MSU’s 6-9 freshman, Allyssa DeHaan, was expected to pose more of a scoring challenge to Maryland’s post tandem of Crystal Langhorne and Laura Harper. But they’ve been dealing with the more imposing 6-7 Duke center Alison Bales for the past three seasons, so no problem. Though DeHaan swatted five blocks, three of them in the first four minutes of the game, she was never a factor. Langhorne scored 28 on 13-for-14 shooting and led five scorers in double figures, including Jade Perry’s 12 points and 10 rebounds off the bench. Victoria Lucas-Perry’s 20 led MSU (12-3).
It was supposed to be the Terrapins’ (17-0) first test against a ranked opponent, though the national champs had struggled in their season-opener against Middle Tennessee and also the unranked Temple Owls. They definitely made a statement.
"Just a lot of fun today. We really talked about being able to make a statement," Maryland coach Brenda Frese said. "We got after it in so many dimensions of the game."
We’ll see what they’re saying next week against ACC rival No. 3 Duke (15-0).
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New York state of mind. In addition to junior college transfer Bobbitt, Tennessee has another player from New York City: Nicky Anosike of Staten Island and St. Peter’s. Connecticut’s much-ballyhooed freshman, Tina Charles, starred at Christ the King, as did Maryland’s second-ranked career scorer, Shay Doron. The Terps’ Christie Marrone of Brooklyn went to St. John Villa Academy.
