| | | Twelve games.
|  | | Jennifer Rizzotti is confident her alma mater will run its record vs. Tennessee to 8-5 after Thursday. |
In UConn's and Tennessee's heated hoops rivalry, the two teams have only met 12 times, with UConn winning seven and Tennessee five. Before 1995, we didn't even play each other. But the importance of those 12
games -- the two teams have split four NCAA Tournament meetings -- has catapulted the Huskies and the Lady Vols into the premier rivalry in women's hoops today.
I was UConn's junior point guard during the first clash in 1995. Tennessee was No. 1 in the country and we were No. 2, and we desperately wanted to beat them. In years past, Tennessee had been bouncing around in the Top Five and Top 10, and we wanted to get to that level. We were the underdog trying to knock out the champion.
We did win, but because the game was at home in Gampel Pavilion, people didn't give us the respect we thought we deserved. Even when we landed in the NCAA Tournament final with a 34-0 record, people still didn't believe. We were facing Tennessee for the championship, and despite our victory over them during the season, most people picked the Vols to win. Knowing that no one expected us to pull it out, we adopted a "we'll-show-you" attitude. We edged Tennessee 70-64 to become the second team in NCAA history to post an undefeated season.
The rivalry was on.
Before 1995, the big games on the Husky schedule were Stanford, Miami, maybe Notre Dame. But after that 1995 NCAA final, the Tennessee games were always the biggest matchups of the year. No matter how much we tried to downplay it, the team that won those games usually became No. 1 in the country. And the games were either a crucial match in the NCAA Tournament or midseason revenge for the team knocked out the
previous year. It was a battle for bragging rights, and there was an intensity on the court that just wasn't there with other opponents. We wanted to take them down so badly that we ended up hating them.
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It
was a battle for bragging rights, and there was an
intensity on the court that just wasn't there with
other opponents. We wanted to take them down so badly that we ended up hating them.
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— Jennifer Rizzotti |
There really weren't any huge women's hoops rivalries before ours. For one thing, women's basketball wasn't on TV a lot. Without televised
games, it's hard to develop anything more than a local rivalry. The more we were on TV, the bigger the rivalry got.
It didn't hurt that our coach, Geno Auriemma, and the Lady Vols' coach, Pat Summitt, encouraged the battle by adding it annually to their nonconference schedule. The coaches, schools and players feed off
this. Both coaches have a mutual respect for the intensity the opposition brings to this game. That's what makes it so fun to watch.
And the game that's played by these two teams is often exceptional. Tennessee's Nikki McCray and Chamique Holdsclaw and UConn's Rebecca Lobo and Nykesha Sales were the first wave of talent, and today's teams boast players such as Tennessee's Tamika Catchings and Michelle Snow and UConn's Sue Bird and Shea Ralph. The two teams will have at least a dozen women playing professionally in the next five years.
But Thursday night the focus is on the college game, and I think UConn's going to pull it out. I may be a little biased, but with Catchings out with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee, Tennessee is going to lack leadership.
Besides, now that the Huskies have tasted defeat this year, they're not going to want to lose again.
Especially to Tennessee.
Jennifer Rizzotti played point guard for the University of Connecticut from 1992 to 1996, averaging 11.1 points and 3.4 assists over 135 games. She has played two seasons for the Houston Comets in the WNBA and is now head coach of the University of Hartford women's basketball team.
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