Breakdown of Seniors a Must to Avoid as Connecticut Faces Louisville

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

ALBANY, N.Y. — The year was 1999. 

The place was Greensboro Coliseum in the Elite Eight round of the Eastern Regional in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament in North Carolina.

The top seed of the regional, Tennessee, the three-time defending national champion and overwhelmingly favored to make its fifth straight Women’s Final Four, to be played in San Jose, Calif., entered the game against upstart Duke, within an hour of the Blue Devils’ campus in nearby Durham, with a 31-2 record.

The star of the Lady Vols on her way to her final appearances as a collegiate player, was senior Chamique Holdslcaw, who had been a one-woman wrecking crew in her previous three games in the tourney, scoring 23, 37, and 29 points, respectively.

Back when newspaper coverage was still plentiful, all the host Final Four Bay Area publications were on the scene with columnists and beat writers to gather as much on the Lady Vols for their special sections the following weekend back out West.

In a friendly pre-game  conversation with a Durham writer, Knoxville Sentinel columnist John Adams was heard to be betting his house, car and everything else on the outcome in favor of Tennessee.

As it turned out, a day earlier, the Guru was pining to rather be somewhere else where the then-massive Connecticut media were partying as they were known to do after turning in their offerings for their editions.

In response, a New York columnist on the scene to chronicle hometown Holdsclaw’s final run said in what seemed pure fantasy at the moment, “But what if they lose?The story of the tournament will be right here, right?”

Sure enough, as the game got under way, Holdsclaw suddenly was missing shots that had been automatic makes her whole career. By halftime she was  0-for-10 and Tennessee trailed 35-24.

When it ended, she was a mere 2-for 18 and a 28-5 Duke team prevailed 69-63.

“We felt all the pressure was on them,” Blue Devils coach Gail Goestenkors said afterwards.

In one corner of the media work room, from among the Bay Area contingent,  seen with their heads buried in the wake of a weekend’s work gone up un smoke, a cry was heard, “Who knows anything about Duke?”

The Guru brings this tale of yesteryear up because though the dynamics are a bit different with the Elite Eight matchup Sunday at noon here in the Times Union Center of second-seed Connecticut, looking to advance to its 12th straight Women’s Final Four, playing No. 1 seeded Louisville, a winner over the Huskies back home in Kentucky last January, each team contains Holdsclaw-like seniors in Asia Durr along with three other Cardinals classmates while UConn has Napheesa Collier and Katie Lou Sampson.

Thus, the question was put to both coaches, are there concerns that the upper class women with a potential farewell appearance looming through a potential loss might suddenly also experience the same disappointment Holdsclaw had undergone.

“I don’t even worry about,” said Louisville coach Jeff Walz, whose team ousted No. 4 Oregon State 61-44 Friday night to improve to 32-3, including the 78-69 first-ever win over UConn at home in Kentucky on January 31. 

The three losses were all in the Atlantic Coast Conference to Miami and twice to defending national champion Notre Dame, including one in the ACC championship.

“We don’t even talk about that,” Walz continued. “Our team has known since we started this tournament – well, actually the start of the ACC tournament – we talked, it’s one-and-done now guys.

“The ‘my bads,’ the ‘Hey, I’m sorry,’ it’s not good enough.

“I tell them right now if I’ve got to spend any energy trying to get you excited, I’m just going to take you out,” Walz explained.

“Your teammates should not have to spend any energy on trying to get you focused because your head is down because you missed a shot or you’re frustrated. Everybody on that floor has got to spend the energy on on the opponent, on themselves.

“Guys, this is the best time of the year, it’s the most exciting part of college basketball. So I truly believe our seniors are dialed in. They’re looking forward to the opportunity tomorrow. And I don’t worry about that at all.”

Auriemma, though, had a different take to the question at Saturday’s press session following the Huskies’ fourth-quarter surge in Friday’s opener to complete a rally to down sixth-seed Cinderella UCLA 69-61 and move on to the Elite Eight, where they are 23-0 on games leading to an unbelievable 11 straight Final Four appearance streak.

UConn is now 34-2, the losses being to overall No. 1 Baylor and the Louisville game.

Collier, with 25 points and 10 rebounds, and junior Crystal Dangerfield, with 11 fourth-quarter points and all 15 in the second half, were two main keys to UConn staying alive.

“It happens,” he said about senior stars potentially coming up empty as the margin for error grows greater with no recourse possible for another day. “You always worry about seniors, their whole senior year, especially in the NCAA tournament.

“Some kids just take off and they have incredible finishing acts to their careers. And other kids do get worried, they do get a little bit apprehensive about what if, what if, what if. They start to think that way,” Auriemma continued.

“As a coach, I don’t know if you can do anything to prevent that.

“ I’ve been in both situations, you know, where I’ve had seniors that they played their best basketball during the NCAA Tournament, and I’ve had some older kids who were a little bit gun-shy,” he said.

“You just hope, cross your fingers that you’ve got kids that they’ve been waiting for this moment, and they know this is their last time, and they’re determined to make the most of it.”