WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — On the eve of another Tennessee game in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, coach Pat Summitt fielded more questions about the last one.
The Tennessee-Connecticut rivalry won’t resume unless the two teams meet in this year’s championship game. But that didn’t slow the questions concerning Summitt’s relationship with UConn coach Geno Auriemma during Saturday’s news conference.
Summitt, who rejected a two-year extension of the programs’ series last June, expressed surprise that Auriemma generated more conversation than 16th-seeded Oral Roberts, Tennessee’s first-round opponent tonight at Mackey Arena.
“You know what? I did not sit down and think, ‘I’m going to have to field a question about Pat and Geno,’” Summitt said later outside of the locker room. “And that’s probably the last time I’ll even attempt to answer anything about that, because this is not about us. This is about our team and what we’re focused on doing.”
Auriemma has said Summitt should just admit she doesn’t like him, and that’s why the series is over. Summitt said Auriemma knows why the series is over, but she still won’t specify why she elected to end the most storied rivalry in women’s college basketball.
How much did her rocky relationship with Auriemma impact her decision to cancel the series?
“Absolutely nothing,” she said.
What about UConn arranging a tour of ESPN for freshman star Maya Moore, a secondary NCAA violation?
“I care not to speak about that,” Summitt said.
ESPN is relishing the tension, using Summitt’s and Auriemma’s images to promote the women’s tournament. Both teams are top seeds and would certainly create plenty of discussion if they met at the Women’s Final Four in Tampa.
But the Lady Vols (30-2) must win five games to make such a matchup possible, starting tonight against Summit League tournament champion Oral Roberts (19-13). The Golden Eagles, with no seniors on the roster, finished sixth in the conference during the regular season but won three straight games in the league tournament.
“We’re realistic,” Oral Roberts coach Jerry Finkbeiner said. “Our margin of error is small.”
Tennessee’s all-time margin of victory in first-round games, 37.4 points, is quite large. And maybe that’s why some members of the media wanted to focus on a potential game with UConn even though the Lady Vols say Summitt never talks about her relationship with Auriemma.
“They’re not us,” Tennessee’s Alexis Hornbuckle said. “We don’t have anything to discuss but ourselves.”
Candace Parker, playing in her final NCAA tournament, said her lone focus is on Oral Roberts. The UConn talk, she said, is all generated by the media.
“Coach is a classy woman. She’s the classiest of them all,” she said. “So I have the utmost respect for Pat and how she’s handled it.”
Tennessee will play the winner of today’s 8-9 game between Utah and Purdue, making an NCAA road game a possibility for the second straight year. But Summitt, whose team won at Pitt last year in the second round, said she schedules difficult road games during the regular season to prepare her team for such matchups.
Of course, none of those matchups this year included UConn.
“I think there were a lot of people who were disappointed,” Summitt said, “but I think there’s more to the game now than that matchup.”
For Tennessee, that starts tonight.
