Today's Women's NCAA Tournament previews
Notre Dame seeks to break UT slump
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Muffet McGraw has a national championship and more than 500 career wins to her credit. She's a former national coach of the year and has at least one win over nearly every team she's faced in 21 seasons at Notre Dame.
But not Tennessee.
The one glaring line that she'd like to delete from her resume reads this way: 0-15 against the Lady Vols. She'll get another chance Sunday night when the fifth-seeded Irish (25-8) face the defending national champions in the semifinals of the Oklahoma City Regional.
"I feel like it's sort of printed on my forehead '0-for-Tennessee," McGraw said Friday.
Pat Summitt's Tennessee squads have won by an average of 23 points. Earlier this season, the Lady Vols won 87-63 at Notre Dame.
"They're an excellent team and probably the one year we had the national championship team, we didn't play them," said McGraw, who led the Irish to the 2001 NCAA title. "Not to say that we would have won, but probably that would have been our best chance.
"They've always been the higher seed when we've played them, and they're not the kind of team that looks past people, that you can sneak up on."
Only two of the teams' 19 meetings have come in the NCAA tournament. Tennessee beat the Irish 80-66 in the 1997 Final Four and then knocked off the defending champions in an 89-50 rout in the second round of the 2002 tournament. Only one of the contests has been decided by single digits.
None of that matters to the Lady Vols (32-2).
"This is for a championship. You win or go home," Tennessee forward Nicky Anosike said. "That's motivation right there."
The Irish are seeking their first appearance in a regional final since their national championship run, while Tennessee is going for its seventh in a row and 13th in the past 14 years. The Lady Vols have 10 Final Four appearances and four national titles in that stretch.
"They're the best team in the nation, and everybody wants to go out there and play against the best because it brings out the best in you," said guard Charel Allen, who scored a career-high 35 points in Notre Dame's second-round win against Oklahoma. "That's how I feel about playing against Tennessee."
In their first meeting this season, Tennessee's Angie Bjorklund had a career-high seven 3-pointers as the Irish appeared to be concentrating their defense on All-American Candace Parker, although she still scored 20 points.
"I think the first time we played them, we worried too much about her, she still got 20 points and everybody else beat us as well," McGraw said. "So I think we need a new plan."
Of late, Allen said the Irish have watched film of the game "over and over again, and actually I'm tired of watching it." McGraw said after the first game, she thought her team had "played scared."
"I don't know if it helps playing them once, but I think it does help that we did play three of the No. 1 seeds and then Rutgers as a No. 2 seed. I think we got better during the year playing those kinds of teams," McGraw said.
"I think at this point in the season, the seniors are thinking, 'We don't want our season to end,' so I don't know if we will be intimidated. I really don't think we will be, but certainly we're going to play hard."
Tennessee counters with its own lineup of veterans seeking to go out on top. Starters Alexis Hornbuckle, Shannon Bobbitt, Alberta Auguste and Anosike are all seniors, and Parker has already declared her plans to leave for the WNBA following her junior year.
"We talk about the legacy that this senior class could leave on this program," Summitt said. "Yes, they've won SEC championships. Yes, they've obviously cut down the nets last year in Cleveland. But is there more for them to really leave their mark? I've tried to put that in front of them because I think they are such a talented team that they should be thinking we want to certainly let people know that we want to win a championship.
"We've won one. We would like to win two."
As for McGraw's futility against Summitt, she provided this analysis of her chances this time against the 979-game winner.
"I think I'm getting Pat at good time right now. She's coming off the shoulder injury, she's got bad knees," McGraw said. "I think if I get her in a running game this year, I've got her."
To which Summitt said: "She's going to have to take those high heels off to catch me."
UConn and Old Dominion have been here before
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Before Connecticut reigned supreme in women's basketball, there was Old Dominion.
The Norfolk, Va., based school established itself three decades ago as one of the early powerhouses in the sport, with the Monarchs reaching three NCAA Final Fours and claiming three national championships in two different tournaments.
Now Old Dominion has made its deepest tournament run in years, and coach Wendy Larry's team faces a familiar obstacle in the Greensboro Regional semifinals: top-seeded UConn (34-1), which long ago surpassed the No. 5-seeded Monarchs on its way to becoming one of the pre-eminent powers in the women's game."
If Old Dominion wins (Sunday's) game, it's the biggest upset in the history of the tournament, because we're UConn and we're not supposed to lose," Huskies coach Geno Auriemma wryly said Saturday. "But I don't think they look at it that way."
They sure don't. Instead, Larry's program is looking to recapture the high level of success that carried the Monarchs to the 1985 NCAA tournament championship, captured consecutive AIAW crowns in 1979 and '80 before that, and produced U.S. Olympic team coach Anne Donovan.
After claiming its 17th consecutive Colonial Athletic Association title, Old Dominion advanced out of the NCAA tournament's opening weekend for the first time since 2002, when its run to the regional finals was ended in rather lopsided fashion by UConn in the teams' only previous meeting in the NCAAs.
"I had a reporter ask me the other day what it was like to be back. I'm not so sure that we ever went away," Larry said. "Certainly, to go back to the (round of) 16 kind of solidifies your presence in the top 20."The Monarchs (31-4) hope they've come a long way from the teams' previous meeting -- an 83-46 loss at a November tournament in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Though that was only their fourth game of the season, they call it their turning point because one day later, they took then-No. 4 Stanford to the wire before falling by eight points.
"I don't know if anyone looks forward to playing the University of Connecticut, as well as they're playing right now, but certainly in our situation it'll be a great test for us," Larry said. "We hadn't really established ourselves as any type of program whatsoever. We didn't know what we were going to be. We learned in that particular game that we had to compete for 40-plus (minutes). We only competed for 14."
Of course, the quick-strike Huskies have a knack for making even the best teams look silly. With Big East player of the year Maya Moore leading the way, UConn has reeled off 13 straight victories since their only loss came Feb. 5 at Rutgers -- which, if the seeds hold up, most likely awaits Auriemma's team in the regional final.
The Huskies have the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament for good reason: they're scoring 82 points per game -- only North Carolina (87.6) averages more -- while holding opponents to about 51, second-best nationally to LSU.
Since winning their fifth and most recent national title in 2004, they haven't escaped the regionals. But as they continue the pursuit of title No. 6, they've taken the attitude that if they play their best basketball, the only team that can beat UConn is, well, UConn.
"You have to have that mentality if you're trying to win a national championship," Moore said. "You have to believe that you're the best team, and that it's within your control to bring the best team out every night. That's probably the most important thing for us, making sure we bring out our best every night."
Does Texas hunger take a bite out of Duke's experience?
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Reaching the regional semifinals in the NCAA women's tournament has been routine for Duke over the last decade, with 11 straight appearances.
It's been anything but commonplace for second-seeded Texas A&M. The Aggies are making their first appearance in the round of 16 since 1994 when they made their tournament debut.
Texas A&M definitely seems like the odd team out in the Oklahoma City regional, as the other three squads -- including Tennessee and Notre Dame -- each have appeared in at least one national championship game during the past seven years.
But if you believe Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie and Texas A&M coach Gary Blair, any past experience is overrated.
"I think every team is really hungry," McCallie said Saturday as the third-seeded Blue Devils (25-9) prepared for Sunday night's game against second-seeded Texas A&M (28-7). "I think this is a hungry time of year. I don't think you can put all of these teams collectively together. These are teams that represent this year and only this year.
"Whatever has been done in the past is not relevant to now. It's just not. What's relevant is now and what we can do together as a team."
And, as Blair pointed out, even if Texas A&M never has been this far in years, he has. Blair guided Arkansas to the Final Four in 1998 -- beating Duke in a regional final -- and made four other appearances in the round of 16 while coaching at Stephen F. Austin.
"This isn't my first rodeo," he said. "The thing is I've got a basketball team, until it's proven different, is as good as the team I took to the Final Four in '98. It is every bit as good defensively and the only way you can prove that is to win, OK?"
After starting 1-4 in Big 12 Conference play, Texas A&M has won 11 straight games and 15 of its last 16. The Aggies haven't lost since falling at Oklahoma on Feb. 12.
"Because they have 'Duke' on their shirts doesn't mean we're not going to go play our game," Texas A&M junior Danielle Gant said. "We're going to play good defense."
The Aggies have emerged as a national power under Blair in recent years mainly because of their defense. They led the Big 12 in scoring defense, allowing opponents an average of 54.7 points per game, and defend the 3-point shot well, with opponents making 26.4 percent of their attempts.
Blair said it would be to the Aggies' advantage to keep the score of Sunday's game in the 50s or 60s against a Duke team that averages 71.4 points.
"What I like about Duke is all of them can put the ball on the floor and score," Blair said. "They change up their defenses. They're not afraid of turnovers, because they want you to play their style of ball, a fast style."
Duke is 7-3 all-time in the regional semifinal round, and while McCallie might be in her first season with the Blue Devils, she also has considerable tournament experience, having guided Michigan State to the 2005 national championship game.
Duke's 6-foot-5 junior center, Chante Black, has starred in tournament wins this season over Murray State and Arizona State, finishing with 26 points and 13 points in the 67-59 win over the Sun Devils.
"There has been a lot of talk about how great Chante is playing, but it's not a surprise to us," Duke guard Abby Waner said. "All along we've thought she was one of the best post players in the country, and she makes it fun for a guard to play because she doesn't play like a low-post player. She makes us look good and we'll get her the ball."
Texas A&M and Duke have played only once before, with the Aggies winning 83-73 on Nov. 17, 1995, at home.
The Aggies went 1-1 this season against Atlantic Coast Conference schools beating Florida State 81-67 and losing to Wake Forest 53-46. Duke beat Florida State twice and Wake Forest once, but the Blue Devils didn't play a Big 12 team during the regular season.
Rutgers feels at home against George Washington
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The bus carrying the Rutgers Scarlet Knights to dinner earlier this week passed by the hotel where they stayed during last year's NCAA tournament.
For guard Matee Ajavon, that was enough to revive those feel-good memories of their improbable run through the Greensboro Regional. The Scarlet Knights are back, and ready to do it again.
"It's a little bit of a home-away-from-home," center Kia Vaughn said Saturday. "We're going to come out and just play like we're at home."
Rutgers (26-6) has plenty of reasons to feel comfortable in this city in the central North Carolina Triad. After upsetting a No. 1 seed here last year, the No. 2-seeded Scarlet Knights are looking to repeat that feat âˆ' but not before they take on former Atlantic 10 rival George Washington (27-6) in a regional semifinal Sunday.
"We're not hoping for a miracle, because I don't think it takes a miracle," Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said. "I think it takes for us to play consistently, as well as calmly. Maybe we thought it took a miracle before, but I don't think it takes one at this particular level and at this particular point."
What happened here a year ago certainly could qualify as one, at least from the Scarlet Knights' perspective. Their season appeared to be over in the semifinals and their one-point lead seemed doomed, as Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year Lindsey Harding stepped to the free-throw line with less than a second left. Two shots were all that stood between then-No. 1-seeded Duke and another regional final.
Then, she missed both. Suddenly, Rutgers' season was saved and Stringer's team eventually advanced to the second Final Four in school history.
Now, the Scarlet Knights want their third. But to get there, they'll have to take care of a Colonials team they beat by 25 points in November -- the only blemish on GW's 5-1 start.
"I tried to burn the film, but I couldn't do that âˆ' fire laws in the gym," GW coach Joe McKeown quipped.
The schools shared plenty of history in the A-10, meeting in the league championship game three times between 1992-95 before Rutgers joined the Big East in 1995-96.
If the Scarlet Knights claim their second win this season against George Washington, what most likely awaits them is a third meeting with top-seeded Connecticut. Rutgers gave the Huskies their only loss of the season Feb. 5 before UConn claimed the regular-season finale.
But postseason rematches seemingly are unavoidable for Rutgers, which already has played 10 of the 15 other teams that reached the regional semifinals and went 7-5 against them.
"The good part of that is, there are very few teams that we will not have some sense of who they are and how they played," Stringer said. "I think that's good scheduling on our part."
Sarah-Jo Lawrence's putback at the buzzer sealed GW's second-round upset of third-seeded California and gave the Colonials the first consecutive regional semifinal appearances in school history.
Though they're seeking only the school's second trip to the round of eight and first since 1997, seniors Lawrence, Whitney Allen and A-10 player of the year Kimberly Beck are plenty familiar with the tournament. They're in the NCAAs for the fourth straight year, and say postseason losses to North Carolina in 2005 and '07 and Tennessee in 2006 have shown them what it takes to win in March and early April
."We have a lot of experience against those teams, so we know what to expect," Beck said. "They're all physical, they're all really aggressive. ... Rutgers isn't any different, so we know we have to bring it to them and have to be aggressive on the boards and on defense. I think (that experience) is going to help us a lot."