Cinderella taking dance lessons

There are no George Masons in women's college basketball. At least not yet.

The men's side of the NCAA Tournament has true Cinderellas such as No. 11 seed and Final Four-bound George Mason, but the women's tournament seems to have perennial favorites in the title games. Tradition-strong programs such as Tennessee or Connecticut or LSU; talented favorites such as Stanford or Baylor or North Carolina.

Parity in women's basketball? It's not there yet.

"I don't know if I'll live to see it," Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said Monday.

The reason, as Summitt sees it, is simple: "We are still playing catch-up to the men's game in overall talent pool," she said.

North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell said she has seen a subtle shift during her 31 years as a coach in a leveling of the talented teams.

"It used to be you had the same four, six, eight teams in the Elite Eight every year," Hatchell said. "Every year, you're getting more teams."

In 2001, No. 5 seed Southwest Missouri State qualified for the Final Four behind the play of Jackie Stiles. While Summitt is not confident she still will be around when an 11th seed in the women's tournament makes its way to the Final Four, she has seen improvement.

"We don't have that yet in the women's game, but when you look at seventh-, eighth-, ninth-graders now, they are a lot better than they were even three years ago," Summitt said.

Friends and foes:

One has "the stare." The other simply says a name.

Summitt and Hatchell, coaches of the two teams in the Cleveland Regional final, have been friends since the two coached together at Tennessee at the start of Summitt's coaching career with the Volunteers. Hatchell was the junior varsity coach at Tennessee while Summitt coached the varsity.

They have gone separate ways but remained friends through it all. Each has been successful in more than 30 years of coaching, and each one has her own way of letting players know when they have made a mistake. Summitt has her legendary icy glare. Hatchell simply says the player's name loudly.

"I act like I don't hear," North Carolina forward Camille Little said.

Little feigned her reaction by looking around blankly.

"What's that noise?" she said.

Though both have different styles and different approaches to the game -- Hatchell is more free-wheeling in letting her players make choices and accept responsibility for outcomes, while Tennessee players universally say they acquiesce to Summitt's experience -- both have been successful. Summitt has six championships, Hatchell has one.

They have stayed such good friends that they try to have reunions such as the one last summer, when all four coaches of that first team reunited for non-basketball talk.

"When you've been at it this long, you make a lot of people mad, but we've managed to stay friends," Summitt said. "Certainly it's important for us to understand friendship is one thing and competition is something else."

The last time:

The only time the North Carolina women's basketball team won the NCAA Tournament, it did so in 1994, one year after the Tar Heels men's team won the tourney.

Maybe it was a one-time occurrence, but one fact to note: North Carolina's men's team won the tournament last year.