A different look
Auriemma’s right, UConn-Tennessee ‘not a big deal anymore’
This was the August afternoon in 2018 when UConn and Tennessee finally agreed to a twogame series. Geno Auriemma was on the other end of the phone line and he still sounded only half-sold.
What Auriemma was sold on was that the two games would not mark a return to the greatest rivalry in the history of women’s basketball.
“That’s like saying the University of Chicago should play football again for the national championship because they had a great rivalry,” Auriemma said. “Those days are over. What existed doesn’t exist today and won’t exist in the future. We have a deal to play for two years and who knows? There may be two more and there may be no more.
“I could be wrong, but I don’t see it ever having the same significance it used to have.”
I was hoping Auriemma was wrong. I was rooting for him to be wrong. He wasn’t wrong. After Thursday night’s game at Thompson-Boling Arena, one between the No. 3 and No. 25 teams in the nation, there’s no need for UConn and Tennessee to play every year. A twogame series a few more years down the line, when maybe Kellie Harper has brought the Lady Vols back among the elite?
Sure. Why not? But no rush. No matter what our hearts want, no matter what ESPN may say, this no is longer must-see. Even Notre Dame, which clearly had replaced Tennessee as the great rival, is rebuilding. How many of these once-greats does UConn have to satisfy each year? Do the Huskies have to get Immaculata, Delta State, Old Dominion and Louisiana Tech on the schedule every season, too?
This is 2021. For the foreseeable future, it’s South Carolina, Louisville,
Baylor and Stanford, if Tara is willing. Any time, any place, every year, as UConn prepares for runs at more national titles with these measuring-stick games.
Nostalgia doesn’t mean equal footing. Tennessee, which hasn’t been to the Final Four since 2008, needs to stand in line in the schedule mill with a dozen good, but not great out-ofconference teams. No offense meant.
That’s not the way I felt 10 years ago, even to a large degree in 2018. Two more?
There should be 22 more like the first 22, right? Those 22 games between Jan. 16, 1995 and Jan. 6,
2007 defined women’s basketball. They grew the sport like nothing else. There were unforgettable games. These were in the heart of the two teams winning 12 of 16 national championships.
There rivalry was so unique and intense that only one woman was selected among the 50 as Enemy of the State in a
2003 Harris Interactive poll for Sports Illustrated. Connecticut: Pat Summitt. Matters only turned hotter when Summitt falsely accused Auriemma of recruiting violations involving Maya Moore.
That’s when Summitt ended the series. I publicly pined for a resumption. It was too fascinating to stop. What if Michigan and Ohio State suddenly stopped playing football? What if Duke and North Carolina stopped playing basketball? It seemed crazy.
Now, the rivalry seems moth-bally, like grandma’s closet. The UMass-UConn men’s series once seemed like must-see before Lew Perkins’ outpriced the tickets and the Minutemen dwindled back to ordinary. Time marches on.
At one point in 2013, Holly Warlick asked Auriemma if he wanted to play and he said he needed an apology to Maya, her mom, UConn fans and players. The ugliness was in the past, but Auriemma said it just couldn’t be, hey, don’t worry about it. The apology wasn’t coming. Neither were the games.
“I don’t care whether we ever play them again,” Auriemma said in 2014. “That game means nothing to me.”
Auriemma had given up on the apology, but the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame brokered the twogame series for all the right reasons. The proceeds from the games raise money for the Pat Summitt Foundation, for itself and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. Auriemma had been the first to donate to the Summitt Foundation to fight for a cure for Alzheimer’s, and he grew emotional when UConn presented
a $10,000 check to the foundation in pre-game ceremonies last January.
Truth. I can recall great moments in the UConnTennessee rivalry from 15-20-25 years ago like they happened yesterday. That game last year at the XL Center, their first in 13 years? UConn was down a few at halftime and pulled away to win by 15, right? Aubrey Griffin played well. Sue Bird and Tamika Catchings were in the stands. That’s about it. Not exactly, Boo Randle scoring a game-winner with four seconds left and talking consummate trash. Or Diana Taurasi punching the logo on the stanchion the night she KO’d the Lady Vols in Knoxville. Or all the tension in Pat vs. Geno.
“There was a good cause attached to it and we were all willing to do that,” Auriemma said Monday. “Where does it go beyond that, I don’t know. There hasn’t been any discussion with me about anything going forward.
“That’s neither here nor there. I think people have to realize it’s not a big deal anymore. It’s not. Whatever you want to say, it’s not that big a deal anymore. We played here last year. It wasn’t that big a deal. Maybe I got it all wrong. I don’t know.
“We didn’t sell out the game last year. Not even close (a couple thousand shy). So how big a deal is it? We probably sold out every Notre Dame game we played in the last 10 years … I don’t feel that buzz like I used to around everywhere, media-wise, neighborhoods, the state, everything. Maybe because it has been too long. Maybe because it was never about Tennessee and Connecticut. Maybe it was because it was Pat and Geno after a while. I don’t know. But I don’t feel it. I don’t know if Kellie (Harper) feels it. I’ve never asked her.”
Harper was asked Tuesday about continuing the series.
“I think we definitely have interest there,” she said. “We’d have to talk through logistics and what that would look like, but we're definitely willing to have those conversations.”
Of course, the Lady Vols want to play. They want back into the national spotlight.
“If Kellie wants to,” Auriemma said Tuesday night, “I’m sure there’s a pretty good chance it’ll happen.”
What does that mean for future scheduling of a series? Don’t know.
There were things that happened during that Maya situation that still upset UConn. There’s a feeling Summitt needlessly exposed a kid to unfair, public ridicule. In 2018, Auriemma said, “I was pissed then, I’m pissed now and I’ll be pissed forever at what happened.” For a good cause? Yeah, he’ll play.
As Summitt grew ill, they made their peace at the 2012 Final Four before she died in 2016. Auriemma learned to separate the extraordinary human being from the rivalry. Even Tuesday night when Auriemma surpassed Summitt’s mark of 1,098 wins with a rout of Butler, Auriemma said, “I wish she was still coaching, and I wish she was still with us. I wish I had to work a lot harder to catch her.”
Surely an ESPN game with UConn against any elite opponent each year could raise money for the Pat Summitt Foundation. It just doesn’t have to be the Lady Vols every year.
After Evina Westbrook transferred from Tennessee to UConn, she was denied a NCAA transfer waiver to play last season. Tennessee didn’t lift a finger to help. Auriemma, who referred Westbrook’s bad experience in Knoxville while Warlick was there, was angry. He also wasn’t specific, saying that was up to Westbrook and her family. They have largely remained mum, and even that juicy battle has quietly gone away.
Unless Westbrook scores a winning basket with four seconds off and spouts off, or Tennessee pulls an upset, nothing rivalry-wise will have come out of this two-game series. Some boos or hoots from 4,000 people at Thompson-Boling won’t change anything.
The Lady Vols are just going to have to become relevant. They’re not good enough to envy. They’re not good enough to hate.