[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 47 (Thursday, April 13, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E578]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   TRIBUTE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT WOMEN HUSKIES--2000 NCAA 
                 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOHN B. LARSON

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 13, 2000

  Mr. LARSON. Mr. Speaker, today I pay tribute to the 2000 National 
Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Women's Basketball National 
Champions, the University of Connecticut Huskies. On Sunday, April 2, 
the Husky Women put on what can only be described as a 40-minute 
basketball clinic for their opponents, the Tennessee Lady Vols.
  Earlier this year, I had the great privilege to meet with Geno 
Auriemma and the team when they were in town to play Big East 
Conference rival Georgetown. Their individual accomplishments this 
year, like those of the women playing before them, continue to raise 
the standard for excellence and achievement in women's athletics. I 
would like to congratulate each member of the team, Coaches Geno 
Auriemma and Chris Dailey, Lew Perkins and the UCon Athletic 
Department, and all the fans and supporters of UConn Women's Basketball 
who made this great victory possible.
  I can no more eloquently describe these achievements than Randy Smith 
did in his article published in the April 3, 2000, edition of the 
Journal Inquirer titled ``Return of the Native is Masterpiece.'' I 
submit the text of that article for the Record at this time:

               [From the Journal Inquirer, Apr. 3, 2000]

                  Return of the Native is Masterpiece

                            (By Randy Smith)

       Philadelphia.--A couple of minutes after his Connecticut 
     women's basketball team won the national championship, coach 
     Geno Auriemma embrace his own triple crown. He hugged his 
     children, his wife, and his mother. There were tears in 
     everybody's eyes.
       The native had returned to Philadelphia to play for college 
     basketball's biggest prize. He not only won it, but claimed 
     Tennessee coach Pat Summitt's scalp in the process.
       UConn's 71-52 decision over the Lady Vols was more 
     coronation than competition.
       ``A lot of guys who were coaching when I was playing used 
     to tell me I'll never be any good as a player and they were 
     right,'' Auriemma said. ``So I turned out to be the coach of 
     a championship team. It's kind of funny to come back and 
     they're all in the stands. They're happy for me because they 
     finally saw me win something.''
       There was never a doubt.
       Basketball is nowhere near as complicated as paid analysts 
     try to make it. Do you know what it takes to win games? Good 
     players. The rest is rhetoric.
       It has taken Auriemma the better part of a decade to 
     assemble more good players at UConn than Summitt has at 
     Tennessee and those good players strutted their stuff Monday 
     night. Shea Ralph, Asjha Jones, and Kelly Schumacher were 
     standouts, but Svetlana Abrosimova, Swin Cash, Tamika 
     Williams, Sue Bird, and Kennitra Johnson all played pivotal 
     roles. Under the glare of the big spotlight, UConn got 
     something from everybody.
       ``I've told these kids all year long that every pass we 
     make in practice, every cut, every rebound, pretend like it's 
     the one that's going to win the national championship,'' 
     Auriemma said. ``The kids have practiced that way all year. 
     And the night they had to do it, they did it better than at 
     any other time of the season.''
       Associate head coach Chris Dailey agreed.
       ``This was the A game we've been waiting for,'' she said. 
     ``All anybody talks about is how talented we are. But if you 
     take a closer look, our players are unselfish, they've got 
     heart and character, they'll make sacrifices, and they're 
     willing to put away individual things to be part of a team. 
     There's not one pain in the neck in the bunch. That's the 
     story.''
       Here's another: Summit was hoisted by her own self-
     confidence. Had she admitted to herself that Tennessee would 
     be the second-best team on the floor, she could have put in 
     some wrinkles to give UConn problems. She could have played 
     Semeka Randall on Bird to disrupt UConn's offense. She could 
     have played a lot of zone to slow the pace of the game. She 
     could have thrown in a couple of gimmicky defenses. Instead 
     she opted to play UConn straight-up, even down a starter in 
     Kristen Clement.
       It was a very, very bad decision.
       ``It was an extremely disappointing performance by our 
     basketball team and a very painful loss,'' Summit said. ``I 
     don't think any of us expected this. Nothing we tried worked. 
     At times, I felt helpless. We played on our heels from the 
     beginning. I hate that we got ourselves in this position and 
     couldn't have been more competitive. We'll look at the film 
     later. No time soon, though.''
       Auriemma spoke of Tennessee's ``aura'' leading up to the 
     game, knowing full well that Connecticut carries one of its 
     own.
       ``Do you know how many real adjustments we made?'' None. 
     They had to adjust to us.''
       That's not altogether true. Kyra Elzy's presence in 
     Tennessee's starting lineup because of Clement's injury freed 
     up one UConn player on defense, in this case, Abrosimova, who 
     doubled down on Michelle Snow in the game's opening minutes. 
     Snow was forced to make reaction passes and they're not that 
     easy, especially if you're not accustomed to making them.
       Tennessee's offense looked to be in a constant state of 
     panic, while its defense was dissected time and time again by 
     UConn's back door cuts and passes, a la the Princeton men's 
     team.
       ``They ran back door cuts off the strong side and cuts 
     across the middle,'' Summit said. ``They ran the same two 
     offenses over and over again. It's not anything new. We'd 
     seen it. Everybody got beat. Semeka Randall got lost on 
     defense, probably more than anyone, and she's one of our best 
     defenders. I wanted to play man to try and get something 
     going, but I'd have to go back to zone because how many 
     layups do you want to give them?''
       If Summit had a white towel, she probably would have tossed 
     it on the floor midway through the second half.
       UConn employed pressure defense in spots to help cause 26 
     Tennessee turnovers.
       ``You don't use pressure just to steal the ball,'' Auriemma 
     said. ``You use it to see how they handle it and they didn't 
     handle it all that great. Had they gone boom, boom, layup, we 
     would have gotten out of it. But they were struggling.''
       Auriemma's use of pressure was borderline masterful during 
     UConn's run through the NCAA Tournament. He said it was part 
     of the plan from the beginning.
       ``For five months, we made teams prepare for our halfcourt 
     offense and our halfcourt defense,'' he said. ``But we worked 
     on the press every day in practice. We wanted to make teams 
     prepare for more than one thing. We wanted a lot of things in 
     our arsenal. The press was in our pocket all along. Come NCAA 
     tournament time, we went to it because we wanted to be super 
     aggressive. At the risk of sounding smart, that was the 
     plan.''
       ``You don't use your closer until you need him.''
       UConn ran the table, all right, but who knew the last ball, 
     the orange one, would be a hanger?
       The first national championship of the millennium may very 
     well be remembered as the passing of the guard. UConn brought 
     more fans to Philadelphia than Tennessee and those fans made 
     more noise. UConn sent out more good players than Tennessee 
     and those players scored way more points. The better team won 
     without breaking stride and may be the first hard evidence 
     that UConn indeed has a better program than Tennessee.
       ``You saw tonight what good teams are made of,'' Auriemma 
     said. ``This team has a chemistry both on and off the court. 
     This team is closer than any I've had.''
       Auriemma proved Thomas Wolfe wrong. You can go home again.

       

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