Summitt Talks

`There's More To Women's Basketball' Than UConn-Tennessee

Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said Saturday that the decision to end the popular UConn-Tennessee women's basketball series was not hers alone.

Summitt said women's athletic director Joan Cronan and school president John Petersen also had input.

"It was a decision made by the University of Tennessee - Joan Cronan, Dr. Petersen and myself," Summitt said. "It was the University of Tennessee that made the announcement and made the decision."

The schools announced Friday that the series, which started in 1995 and grew into one of women's sports fiercest rivalries, would not be continued next season.

Summitt refused to say why Tennessee discontinued the rivalry. She said she could not talk about it until the SEC released its schedule in 2-3 weeks.

Tennessee, which won its first national title since 1998 in April, trails 13-9 in the series but has beaten UConn the past three times, including a 70-64 victory Jan. 6 at the Civic Center. That game was punctuated by a Candace Parker dunk.

There were many such classic moments in the series that began at Gampel Pavilion on Martin Luther King Day in 1995 and catapulted UConn to its first No. 1 ranking and eventually its first national championship. There was a game in 1999 when Semeka Randall and Svetlana Abrosimova mixed it up, earning Randall the nickname "Boo."

There was the snowstorm game in December 2000, where fans braved a blizzard to pack the Civic Center and watch UConn win, 81-76. There was the 2002 game where Diana Taurasi punched the basket stanchion at Thompson-Boling Arena because she wanted to hit "something orange" en route to scoring 32 points in a 86-72 UConn victory.

And the time in 2003 when Taurasi rained shots from all over the court, including a 65-footer, to lead the Huskies past Tennessee 63-62 in overtime at the Civic Center.

Summitt, who has a 947-180 record in 33 years, said women's college basketball has progressed far enough that it doesn't necessarily need UConn-Tennessee to stoke interest.

"It's been a great series," she said. "There's more to women's basketball than just this game. If you look at the growth of our game, this has been a big part of it. But this past year, you had Duke, North Carolina, Maryland and all those ACC matchups. I think women's basketball is in a whole different state, in a positive way. You've got a lot of quality teams and quality games."

ESPN would have shown the game next season. Carol Stiff, senior director of programming and acquisitions, helped jump-start the series in 1995 and appealed to Summitt to continue it, but Summitt said she never felt pressured by the network.

"Did I get pressured? No," she said. "Obviously, they wanted this game very much."

"We talked. [Stiff] is a professional. She accepted the stance or position that's been taken here."

Contact Lori Riley at lriley@courant.com.