Guru UConn/Tennessee Revival Musings: The Backdrops Plus Dealing Pat and Geno

Guru’s note - you’ve kept asking for the Iliad and the Odyssey so enjoy the brain dump :) 

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

And so the big day/night has arrived though with 13 years gone by UConn/Tennessee is not what it once was nor is necessarily needed to be since it unwittingly at the outset did its job for others who have taken up the cause.

Just look around the country.

Out West on Friday there will be two dynamic geographical showdowns in the Pac-12 with the Oregons and Arizonas going at it for conference and NCAA implications in a conference for a long time known as Stanford and the 11 dwarfs.

The SEC and ACC have AP ranking showdowns like the PAC-12 every week and now the Big Ten has revived and there are a few mid-majors plus the tweeners like the Big East.

The WNBA looms much larger having been non-existent when they first played but was born because they played and has continued to grow and also the ABL must be mentioned,short-lived that it was.

So, with all that said, if your Guru keeps resisting writing the requested book, then just as my dear longtime colleague/friend Mr. DiMauro at the New London Day just tossed at moments and remembrances, here we go with a lot off remembered sound bites and other things from being in the middle of things, etc.

Tennessee – Phase One

Until February 12, 1990, the Lady Vols, in terms of the Associated Press women’s poll, was world’s away from awareness of the future behemoth program that was to rise literally in the middle of nowhere.

In fact way back then when a local high school star told a classmate she had been recruited to UConn, the response came, why would you want to go to Alaska?

That week Tennessee was No. 4 and Connecticut made its first ranking arrival as No. 24.

Though know this, had not Connecticut at home lost to La Salle from here up there, the Huskies would have moved on to Tennessee the next round, so the famed day in 1995 might have been a little different.

In 1991, had not Penn State lost to James Madison at home, had not Rutgers lost to Toledo at home, had not Dee Kantner waved off the at the buzzer-beater shot by Toledo at UConn, had not the Huskies advanced and then got down here to The Palestra and upset two very good ACC teams in North Carolina State and Clemson, perhaps, that year the Huskies would not have been part of the same Final Four as Tennessee, worlds apart, Virginia and Stanford.

So, up until then, using the poll history as a guideline, Tennessee, from the poll’s creation in 1976 and until that year approached, was dominant, but by comparison, not as UConn dominant came to be.

There were others who could occasionally break through, specifically, the first standing challenger in Louisiana Tech, then at times along the way Texas, and within the SEC and nationally Georgia, and a dab of Stanford.

But what Tennessee was in all those years was consistent, even though the first championship didn’t come until 1987 – they were Pat Summitt dominant, the force of personality, though until that title she was the (UNC Men’s coach) Dean Smith of women’s basketball – everything but the brass ring, considering it had taken the Tar Heels a long time.

At my end, the relationship back then and all the way through was great with their local media, sadly many gone, the athletic department, and of course the basketball staff.

There were great phone calls with Pat, lots, she always got back, or at times, initiated. Ideas would be tossed. Information about elsewhere exchanged.

And when you hear about her playing anybody, that came from the group just before, the Immaculatas and Delta States who would play each other several times a year in barnstorming fashion around the country to show the excellence of what women’s basketball could become with commitments.

But most of the world when attention was paid did not see that. 

They saw the glare, the stare, the bark.

Many times, colleagues from the men’s side would see a clip and ask, “Is she really that mean?”

But in those frontal years, Tennessee never thought of marketing itself as it is thought of today, and I say that so you know for sure even when they had one of the great SIDs of all time in Debby Jennings.

The numbers spoke for themselves, the talent spoke for themselves, and everyone in the sport bowed down and acknowledged.

It is important to know this, because when UConn got to, ironically, New Orleans, and the time came for the advance semifinals pressers, that’s when Katrina hit the place before Katrina, with a media force known as Geno.

Now, Tennessee and UConn were on opposite sides of the bracket and the Huskies were quickly ejected so in terms of what was to come, it was still different worlds.

But until then, at those events, the women would come, say their thing, answer questions, and leave for the next team.

Occasionally, you got a memorable quote, like Long Beach at Texas-hosting and prior to playing the Vols, a 49ers player in evaluating the Lady Vols, referred to them as “a bunch of corn-fed chicks.”

Now, Geno gets there, keeps the pressure off his team, because he’s having fun, and what the media got the first time, was a wise-cracking men’s style coach with fresh copy everytime he opened his mouth.

And remember, at a Women’s Final Four, back then, a lot of first timers, many from the men’s side, was getting what they always got.

And if you wanted to see a bunch of unhappy people, all you had to do was look at the folks running the show, the NCAA staff.

Geno’s presser ended, and no one except West Coast people were still in the room. Everyone else was off in the ante-area eating up every word.

“My team plays what I call Jewish basketball.

“When I grew up in Philly we’d go to a gym and work up a sweat and lose because these old guys would just pass the ball around and make their shot.”

So that’s some of phase one.

UConn Growth - Phase Two

Tennessee continued to be Tennessee, but UConn getting to the Final Four in 91 got UConn Rebecca Lobo and Jenn Rizzotti, etc.

And it got the Huskies something else – local media coverage, lots of local media coverage, and the Horde as they were known covered it like men’s basketball.

Whereas in the early Immaculata days the questions were – Where did you learn to play, etc., now, the talk had the feature stuff, but it also had the X and O on how was the game won.

In fact one of the great hallmarks of the rivalry when it came was the programs may have been at war but the Tennesee media and Connecticut media (with us national types) usually dined together – at Calhouns in Knoxville and a variety of places when the series was played above the Mason-Dixon Line.

Phase Three – Precusor to the Game and Your Guru Involvement

So in that period from 1991 until 1994-95 with a few bumps along the way, the Huskies started to rise.

Also, remember, there were other places that might have taken off first but Penn State blew it in terms of up north. The original crowd had phased out. Virginia didn’t get a title but went three times and Debbie Ryan let the backcourt zanys of Tammi Reiss and Dawn Staley and a few others do all the postgame talking.

In that period, one heard of the quotes from the UConn local media sent to California to cover them in a game and that one night the group was dining at Fisherman’s Wharf on the deck of a restaurant and when the wine came prior to the meal, they looked out on the bay at the sunset, raise d their glasses in a toast and proclaims “Here’s to ... Women’s Basketball.”

In 1994, UConn gets to the Sweet 16 at Rutgers. By rights Geno in the Elite Eight should have met his old time Philly friend in Jim Foster with Vanderbilt, who give him his first job when Foster became previously head coach at Saint Joseph’s.

Vandy was actually for a while an in-state challenger to Tennessee and the two programs spent time one season as 1-2 in the polls, which might have happened by now with the Oregons, if not for recent upsets.

But Vandy lost to North Carolina, which would later on at the finals win the title on the famed Charlotte Smith three-point shot against Louisiana Tech.

It turned out though when those two teams met, each had a post player sister – Heidi Gillingham on Vandy and Gwen on UNC and when crunch time came Heidi missed inside against Gwen and the game went to UNC.

Had it gone to Vandy, possibly UConn wins the Elite Eight, but in 94, the Tar Heels prevail when UNC senior Tonya Sampson swings Rizzotti around like a Rag Doll many times.

Which Gets Us to Phase 4 the Summer of 94.

Up at ESPN, Carol Stiff is working on her schedule and the Martin Luther King Day game. – Lori Riley, yesterday, in the Hartford Courant, has a good interview with Stiff on her role.

At the same time another TV exec from the World Wide Leader, who is now with a key conference in these parts, calls yours truly, still running the AP show externally at that point, though in the early fall it became a writers poll and we went from there.

He tells me, they are going to have a preseason tourney and the talk is they went four of the preseason Top 10 but he wants to do better, the top four, and could I do the vote in the middle of the summer.

Well, no.

You don’t always have to be like the men’s world, but the AP preseason poll released in early August is not going to happen to deviate from the norm.

BUT, we could take select voters and create a special group to determine the teams in a blue ribbon group attached to the event.

At that time there were five possibilities for four spots, UConn being one of them.

And with not much going on in the opening weeks, this was an event to be seen and so the phone started ringing when the word got out and the campaign was under way.

One of them who shall go nameless made a big deal about Philly guys need to stick together. :)

Whatever in the process, from this end, integrity was not going to be impinged. 

But when the vote came in, the Huskies just missed, in part because some forgot Tonya Sampson graduated, and the Huskies have a new exciting freshman in Nykesha Sales.

And the coach gets told, remember when you chaired the all-America committee and you knew someone definitely belonged but when the envelope could no longer be pushed, you let it go?

Yeah.

That’s where I’m at.

That’s OK. They came to us with something else that could be interesting.

Meanwhile ESPN shelves their tourney idea but instead hooks with the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame for a special doubleheader at the outset and uses the teams chosen by the panel, even if the real AP poll was not necessarily going to have them all in the top four.

Had UConn made the group, likely, they would have been matched with Tennessee for the opener.

Of course, they eventually get set on the famed Martin Luther King Game.

So all this is like the first three episodes to Star Wars.

But it gives you the understanding of the mind sets.

Because once UConn wins the game, everyone in the Northeast with a first-ever No. 1 in the neighborhood, wants nothing but all-out coverage of what they consider America’s darlings.

And Tennessee, is like, yo, basketball didn’t just arrive on the planet.

Example, I took a call from Time magazine.

But the quotes from Geno kept coming as the season continued – “Do you know how difficult it is for me to be me?”

Or the time he’s calling out one of his subs in reading the boxscore, and paraphrased an old Philly beer commercial – “Today, she was the Ballantine Girl – Three Rings – No Points, No Rebounds, No Assists.”

My people at The Inquirer loved it, and, different time that it was, was told, go around him as often as you want.

I observed UConn post game events as three layers.

There’s the press conference.

Then the press conference after the press conference where everyone follows to hear what he tells his TV people.

Then there’s real press conference, when deadlines allowed, especially off weekend afternoon games, when he starts shooting the breeze.

It was at one of those that the first inkling of the Calhoun problem started to the point that taking shots at Pat was just playing around as to what  began happening up there.

One game, by the way, the following year, he’s talking how he feels bad he has to pull his seniors quickly in blowouts, and they’re mad because they’re not getting playing time.

So this one time, the players now come in and a Courant writer begins with a question to Rizzotti about did the game play out like she expected.

Hmmm?

He asks again and she responds, “Are you asking me a question or making a statement?” to which a howl went up in the entire room.

To this day, yours truly kids her at GW games and uses it from the past, occasionally.

One time I quipped after a night game - I wouldnt be shocked to see this last so long one time it will become a morning brunch.

Then the following season after we get snowed in via cancelled flights in Knoxville after a saturday win we get invited over to the Uconn hotel by him to enjoy — yep sunday brunch.

Later on the hotel hangouts became commonplace and while they lasted his a-list party at the f4 held even when they competed were must stops to see and be seen.

But I digress from digressing. :) 

When the 94-95 season ends with the unbeaten record and title, getting Tennessee again, after the formal stuff ends in Minneapolis with Geno saying this is like its supposed to be in Cinderella.

Then as they clear he says, to me, do you believe this happened.

And I respond, yeah, you have me to thank.

And he goes, why, you? What did you do?

And I go, if I hadn’t screwed up what you wanted, you would have played Tennessee the first game of the season, and maybe you find a way to win this, but you weren’t going to be ready then, so the storyline would have been entirely different and there probably might not have been a Martin Luther King game or at least not one against them playing you twice, to which he laughed.

The rivalry took off from there, but I can tell you the early years, I always felt the Geno vs. Pat was more like hype for wrestling.

In dealing with both, a lot, I can say in those time, there was mutual respect from both sides, though when Villanova’s Perretta later got in the middle of it, he once quipped, they are two people, very successful at what they do, who win a lot, but don’t like each other very much.

I know after Connecticut won one of the early NCAA showdowns, several months later I was down in Knoxville for the Hall of Fame weekend and Geno had just been named assistant coach for the Sydney Olympics.

Seeing Pat in the hotel lobby several hours later, she came over and said, “Hey, Did you talk to Geno? Is he excited about the Olympics slot?”

In 2000 in Philly, though, with Geno in his element, when he got the Pats and Geno’s Cheesesteak question and responded, it flared again.

One of them is very new and modern and the other very old and dilapidated.

But after 2002 when the famed Huskies group had beaten Tennessee once more, she went to their locker room after the game and saluted the group.

Postgame, at the presser, Geno seemed to go into détente mode.   

It didn’t last long, however, when the following summer Pat approached Perretta, one of Geno’s Philly homeboys, about learning a new offense, and she took a liking to him, and he was in dream world, the great Pat Summitt is inviting me to Knoxville.

The UConn media was ready to stoke this one.

When Perretta revealed he won a game because he was wearing a lucky tie from Pat, Geno was asked, Did she ever give you a tie?

No, a noose maybe. What can I say, he gave me up for an older woman. I can see the two of them in a hot tub together.

That all became a column that was stacked up on the Tennessee media table before the Villanova-Tennessee game that night.

By then, it was getting rancorous and just the Guru’s luck, on my induction weekend, we were aware of the rumors in the early summer of 2007 and we went over to ask her about it during the party she threw.

She said, I would tell you if I could, but TV is involved and I can’t say anything about it right now.

The word came out the next night, however, from the UConn athletic department that the contract had been returned unsigned.

And so until right now, that was the end of it.

But prior to revelations of her illness, when we thought other things might be happening, he placed a call that summer, though she was not there at the time, checking in, offering whatever, and she was touched by that, according to inside reports.

And when the fund raising began, he wrote the first check, and it was pretty large.

And so in a sense, at the point, the road finally turned back to where we are right now.

Ok, I spilled enough. I have to get this into post position for those of you who need all day to kill time reading something.

And there’s a train to catch in a few hours to make the trip North.

 — Guru