CHARLOTTE, NC -- "Offense sells tickets," said Tennessee coach Pat Summitt after her Lady Volunteers squashed Georgia like an annoying mosquito for Summitt's fourth national title.
"Defense wins games," she added, which Tennessee(32-4) employed in abundance to hold player of the year Saudia Roundtree to three-of-14 shooting and the Lady Bulldogs to 38 percent from the field in the 88-65 victory March 31.
"But," she said, completing the coachly cliche, "rebounding wins championships."
And that it did. The Volunteers had 21 offensive rebounds en route to a 54-39 domination of the boards, and that mastery of one of the game's fundamentals determined the outcome of the game. Georgia (28-5), as everyone knows, loves to get out and run -- but you can't run without the basketball. And since Tennessee secured every clutch rebound, the Lady Dogs' speedsters became merely sprinters until they too had to join the melee under the basket in hopes of keeping the Volunteers from getting three and four shots. And that meant they weren't downcourt looking for an outlet pass and an easy basket.
That also meant they weren't on the receiving end of a phone call from President Bill Clinton, who watched the whole game back in Washington, D.C. Clinton's equal-opportunity call was a first for the women's game, but it may have had political motivations as well. Summitt's popularity in Tennessee is so great that she has even been mentioned as a possible candidate, though why she would leave the powerhouse she has laboriously built through 22 years of hard work is hard to imagine.
After all, her fourth title (the three previous came in 1987, 1989 and 1991), her sixth appearance in the championship game and her ninth visit to the Final Four have to make coaching in Knoxville a whole lot of fun. In addition, she'll get to watch Chamique Holdsclaw for three more years -- and the 6-2 freshman topped a brilliant first year with a 16-point, 14-rebound effort and a place on the all-tournament team.
Though Holdsclaw will return, headband and all, Summitt will lose both her guards, and both played critical roles in the win over Georgia.
Michelle Marciniak, named the outstanding player in the Final Four, continued her tournament pattern by making big play after big play. She had 10 points, five assists and four rebounds against Georgia, and was a rock against the consistent pressure applied by the quick-on-quick Lady Dogs.
But Latina Davis, even though she didn't make the all-tourney team, may have played a more important role. She was assigned to Roundtree, who had turned the postseason into her personal highlight film with her incredible quickness, deadly shooting and feel for the game.
Roundtree, though, has one weakness: She much prefers to go to her left. To most defenders, that's irrelevant because they can't stop her even when they know where she's going, but Davis isn't most defenders. She had a brilliant offensive postseason prior to the finals, but her job against Georgia was defense in general and Roundtree in particular. She took away Roundtree's left hand, forced her into some bad shots (the one weakness in on the senior guard's package) and essentially erased her from the game.
So the fact that Davis missed eight of 10 shots and four of eight free throws was easily forgiven, especially considering her seven rebounds and eight assists. She had a job to do for the Tennessee team, and she did it.
Teamwork, speaking of cliches, was an essential part of the Volunteer victory. Five players were in double figures, but none in more spectacular fashion than 6-3 junior forward Abby Conklin, who had had a quiet tournament prior to the 4:32 mark of the first half. At that moment, she took center stage by hitting the first of four consecutive three-pointers over the next 9:37 to help extend a 30-25 Tennessee lead to 57-41.
In the meantime, the Lady Dogs had become a one-woman show, and surprisingly that woman wasn't Saudia Roundtree. La'Keshia Frett poured in 25 points and had 16 rebounds and personally kept Georgia in the game in the early going. She had 16 of her team's 37 first half points, but when she cooled off over the last 20 minutes, Georgia's hopes a first-ever national crown disappeared.
But Frett wasn't the only cold Bulldog in Charlotte. The entire team went 5:56 without a point midway through the second half, helping Tennessee overcome a ragged stretch of its own. There were, in truth, about three minutes of very ugly basketball that women's basketball boosters could only hope went unseen by curious first-time viewers.
Overall, those same boosters would probably much rather have had either of the two overtime games in the past two weekends replace this game for the national TV audience. Tennessee's routine revenge of a Jan. 8 defeat wasn't particularly pretty nor especially spectacular -- though from a coach's point of view it was poetry in motion.
Summitt clearly knew how to beat Georgia, and her game plan was simple: Layup or set up. If the Volunteers couldn't get a layup on a fast break, then they were to set up and pound the ball inside. On defense, equally simple: Deny penetration.
The first part worked like a charm. 6-4Tiffany Johnson joined the 6-2 Holdsclaw with 16 points, all from the inside, and 6-1 Pashen Thompson had 12 points and 11 rebounds off the bench. Though Marciniak and Davis were a combined five-of-23 from outside, Conklin's four three-pointers were enough to open up the posts -- where Tennessee took full advantage.
The defensive strategy looked a little shaky in the early going, as Frett took Conklin to the basket twice and Roundtree made one strong move that didn't pay off, but Tennessee quickly settled down and kept the Lady Bulldogs outside. And the fact that the Volunteers dominated the boards meant there were no easy fast-break baskets for Georgia.
Of course, lots of coaches could have drawn up that game plan. Summitt also recruited the talented players who could execute it and then molded them so that they could do so in the crucible of a national championship game. And though there are a lot of times that college basketball coaches get too much credit, in this case it was really Summitt and not Marciniak who did the most to earn Tennessee its fourth national title.
Georgia was quicker, flashier and had two superstars in Frett and Roundtree, which was why a lot of people thought the Bulldogs' win over Louisiana Tech in the Mideast finals was the real title game. But Georgia didn't have quite as much depth, a weakness Summitt exploited by substituting early (and even giving freshman Kellie Jolly and Brynae Laxton valuable experience) and often. When Georgia Coach Andy Landers went to the bench, more often than not he came up empty. In fact, one of his starters, Leslie Powell, came up empty as well, going scoreless in 12 minutes. Aside from Frett, Kedra Holland (11 points), Tracy Henderson (16 points) and Roundtree (8 points), the rest of the Bulldogs totalled just five points -- while Tennessee's non-starters had 19.
Which was more evidence that Summitt and Marciniak's post-game homilies about the importance of teamwork were not just Tennessee smoke in the wind. The Lady Volunteers lost five seniors to graduation after last year, and were not expected to be much of a force this year, but Summitt convinced the strong-willed Marciniak that it didn't matter how many points she scored or how many spin moves she pulled off. Wins were all that mattered, and in a series of conversations, Marciniak agreed that job one was to win -- and the senior guard couldn't have asked for a better way to end a sometimes controversial career.
As for Summitt, her career continues, and so will her pursuit of John Wooden's seemingly unbreakable mark of 10 national championships. If she isn't derailed by calls from presidents asking her to run for office instead of running the fast break, she just might do it. This, after all, was supposed to be a rebuilding year, and three starters return.
But Final Four colleague Stanford lost no starters and Georgia just one (though that one was Roundtree), so Tennessee probably won't be the favorite next year either. But games, and championships, are won on the court, not in the media, and the Lady Volunteers have done that more often than anyone else in Summitt's 22 years. Her 596th win was her fourth in a national championship game, and only someone ignorant of women's basketball history, and Summitt's talent and drive, would bet against there being a number five.
