UConn has more flash than '95 champs
By Chuck Schoffner
Associated Press
Connecticut won its only national championship in women's
basketball with sound, consistent, fundamental play. If the No.
1-ranked Huskies win another this season, it will be for entirely
different reasons.
|  | | Swin Cash helps lead the Huskies. |
This Connecticut team, 30-1 and the top seed in the East
Regional, is winning with flash and dash. And they prevail despite
more than the occasional turnover and bonehead plays.
"We're quicker, faster, have more depth and are more
explosive," said coach Geno Auriemma, comparing his current team
to the group that won the NCAA title in 1995 with Rebecca Lobo and
Jennifer Rizzotti. "That team was just steady. They killed you
with their consistency.
"We blocked shots, we rebounded and we got any shot we wanted,
any time we wanted. This team helps a lot of stores in Connecticut
sell a lot of Pepsin and Zantac."
Connecticut begins its title quest Friday night at home against
Hampton, winner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament.
Fifteen other games will be played Friday, and there are 16 more on
Saturday, the first step in the process of deciding who goes to the
Final Four in Philadelphia.
"It's time to start over and focus on another whole season,"
said Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw, whose team is seeded second in
the Mideast.
Led by first-team All-Americans Shea Ralph and Svetlana
Abrosimova, Connecticut has been dazzling at times this season. But
Auriemma said it's also a team that can drive him crazy because of
its inexperience.
Four of the top seven scorers are sophomores and another is a
freshman.
"We play two kinds of basketball," Auriemma said. "When this
team is playing well, we're as good if not better than any team
I've ever seen. When everybody clicks, we just destroyed people. It
was like nothing I've ever seen.
"But we went 10 minutes against Rutgers without a field goal.
That never happened to that other unit. That was unthinkable to
that other team."
Though Connecticut should have no trouble with Hampton, more
difficult foes would await the Huskies later. Duke, the national
runner-up last season, is the No. 2 seed in the East, and defending
national champion Purdue is seeded fourth.
Oklahoma, which shared the Big 12 championship with Iowa State
and Texas Tech, also is in the region, and so is Xavier, the mere
mention of which is enough to get UConn fans reaching for that
antacid. As a No. 8 seed last year, Xavier took top-seeded
Connecticut to the wire before losing 86-84 in the second round.
"Did anybody think Xavier was a heart attack waiting to
happen?" Auriemma said. "That's why this is the greatest three
weeks in sports. You better bring your A game every night just in
case the other team brought their's."
The Midwest and West regionals look especially tough, with each
having three top ten teams.
No. 3 Louisiana Tech is the top seeded-team in the Midwest,
which has sixth-ranked Penn State as the No. 2 seed and
seventh-ranked Iowa State as the No. 3.
Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said she thought it was the most
difficult bracket top to bottom, and that was good enough for Iowa
State coach Bill Fennelly.
"When Pat Summitt says it's the toughest region, that's like
coming from the top of the mountain," Fennelly said. "I think you
have a lot of very good teams, teams from good leagues. Anybody
that gets out of this region is going to have to play four darn
good games."
The West Regional has fourth-ranked Georgia, eighth-ranked
Rutgers and ninth-ranked UC Santa Barbara, whose 26-game winning
streak is the nation's longest.
Georgia, the No. 1 seed, got sent West despite coach Andy
Landers' pleas beforehand. But before the Lady Bulldogs fly across
the country to the regional semifinals in Portland, Ore., they have
to get by two stiff challenges at home.
Their first-round game Saturday night is with Montana, which is
making its 14th NCAA appearance. Then they'd have to play Stanford,
a two-time national champion, or Michigan, the Big Ten runner-up.
Also in the West is North Carolina, rejuvenated by the return of
guard Nikki Teasley after a midseason leave of absence. The
selection committee thought so much of Teasley's impact that it
seeded the Tar Heels fifth despite their 18-12 record.
"A lot of people say that's probably a little high," said
Summitt, whose own team is seeded No. 1 in the Mideast. "I'd say
I'm glad they're not in our bracket. With Teasley back, it's
legit." |
