After a year of scintillating, nationwide parity last season, it’s beginning to look like “The Big Two” and everybody else in women’s college basketball once again. With one change. Tennessee is holding strong but Duke is subbing for Connecticut.
The Tennessee-Duke showdown is scheduled for Monday night (ESPN2).
“Those are the two best teams in the country right now,” Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale said. “There’s still parity across the country, but at the top of all that parity you have Duke and Tennessee, Duke deeper than they’ve ever been and Tennessee just unbelievably talented. I think ESPN has to be absolutely ecstatic about ‘Big Monday’ and what it’s doing for women’s basketball.
“I think it puts the moniker of ‘big-time’ next to it, and I really appreciate ESPN for being so forward-looking in creating this opportunity.”
Legendary Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, the winningest coach in men’s and women’s Division I college basketball, got her 900th career victory Thursday night when the Vols defeated 19th-ranked Vanderbilt 80-68 in Nashville, Tenn. Not far behind is Texas Hall-of-Famer Jody Contradt, who racked up win No. 878 at Nebraska on Wednesday.
With Texas losing to Tennessee (102-61) and Duke (84-70), Conradt likes the Lady Vols.
“We were totally overwhelmed at Tennessee, but that’s a tough place to play,” Conradt said. “It should be an interesting matchup. Tennessee is so athletic, so big, so imposing on boards. If they shoot the ball at all, they’re hard to beat. Duke to me is more finesse. They have a lot of depth as well, but they can’t overpower you. But the game’s at Duke, so that’ll be an advantage.”
CSU win propelled DU
The DU women are on a critical two-game road trip against the Sun Belt’s East Division this weekend. It didn’t start well with a 70-39 loss Thursday night at Arkansas State.
“With a divided league, you only get one shot at the East Division teams, so if we could pick one or two off, it would be great for us,” DU coach Pam Tanner said before leaving on the trip. DU will now have to win at Arkansas-Little Rock on Saturday to do that.
Tanner credits a shocking 77-58 romp over Colorado State in early December for helping turn the season around.
“We just dominated a team that everybody expected us to be beaten soundly by,” she said. “That was the game we gained a ton of confidence from and never looked back. We’ve had a couple of bumps in the road, but we’ve played hard ever since.”
Joseph Sanchez can be reached at 303-820-5458 or jsanchez@denverpost.com.
