Nikki Caldwell gets to go home for the holiday, so from that perspective, this trip is already a success.
The UCLA coach, in her second season in Westwood, is bringing her team to Knoxville to take on her mentor, Pat Summitt, and the sixth-ranked Tennessee Lady Vols on Saturday.
It's a chance for Caldwell, the Oak Ridge, Tenn., native, to come back as a local girl made good, and to eat Aunt Janice's dressing.
"There are some good soul food places in L.A., but I'm looking forward to the home cooking," Caldwell said.
Two weeks ago, Pat Summitt surveyed the national scene and said this:
"A lot of people don't have Mississippi State on their radar screen and they should."
Never argue with Pat.
Mississippi State is climbing the rankings -- moving from No. 25 to No. 19 in this week's poll -- and the ladder of national recognition, particularly after Sunday's 84-55 win over No. 20 Maryland.
Granted, Maryland is remodeling after the graduation of Kristi Tolliver and Marisa Coleman and the transfer of Marah Strickland, and Brenda Frese's program will likely struggle with change most of the year, but the Bulldogs took it to the Terrapins on their home floor.
For example, when everyone says that Baylor freshman Brittney Griner will change women's basketball. Well, sure, she will.
But did we all expect it to happen in the first couple of weeks?
In the first three games of her college career, she has tried to dunk twice and missed both. Sunday at No. 17 Cal in Berkeley, Calif., Griner had an opportunity in the closing moments of a 69-49 victory. Baylor had the ball in transition and guard Melissa Jones passed the ball to Griner behind her back at the baseline. Griner went up with her right hand to dunk and the ball bounced off the rim. She pulled down the rebound and was fouled.
STANFORD, Calif. -- Jim Harbaugh talked a little bit about hubris early this week, the danger of thinking you are more than you are.
Did Stanford think that putting up 106 points in consecutive upset victories over Oregon and USC would guarantee another flurry of points and touchdown celebrations?
Did they think that being ranked nationally and favored in the 112th Big Game – unheard of occurrences since Tyrone Willingham left The Farm for Notre Dame after the 2001 season – gave them an advantage against California's Bears?
Did they think that throwing the ball on 2nd down at the Cal 13-yard line with 1:36 to go was a better option that giving it to Toby Gerhart?
The Sacramento Monarchs, one of the WNBA's original eight franchises folded Friday, leaving the league to scramble to find a new ownership group, possibly in the San Francisco Bay Area, in time for the 2010 season.
The league announced Friday that it is in talks to find a Bay Area ownership group prepared to take the team over.
WNBA president Donna Orender confirmed Friday evening that negotiations with an investor group are underway.
Tina Charles' stat line in the box score looks just fine by almost any measure: 15 points, 11 rebounds in 18 minutes.
Unless the person doing the measuring is UConn Huskies coach Geno Auriemma, who sees the personal fouls that kept her out of the game for much of the first half.
Auriemma has a knack for viewing the glass half-empty when it comes to Charles. Fine has never been good enough to stop the yelling and the cajoling. It is really an existential thing between the demanding coach and his senior center who hasn't always risen to meet his demands.
"It's easy to be frustrated with Tina. If I didn't get frustrated with Tina it wouldn't be any fun coaching this team," Auriemma said Tuesday after the top-ranked Huskies' 83-58 win over Texas in San Antonio. "You watch Tina play for the first six or seven minutes and you will say 'Wow, there is nothing this kid can't do.' She could go for 30 every night.' "
SAN ANTONIO -- Tennessee and Connecticut in the same gym, but not on the court at the same time. Maybe San Antonio will bring Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma back together, but not on this night.
Instead, the top-ranked Huskies and the Lady Vols combined to behave a little ungraciously to their Texas hosts in the ESPNU Road to the Championship doubleheader at the AT&T Center.
Tennessee routed overmatched Texas Tech in the first game, 91-53, while the Huskies had little trouble with No. 10 Texas, winning 83-58.
But the night wasn't going to end without a little excitement. Not with Auriemma in the house.
What have we learned after one weekend of the college season?
Brittney Griner is a freshman. OK ... that's a little obvious. But we might forget that as we are distracted by the dunking. When Griner picked up four fouls early in the second half against Tennessee, it was a needed jolt of reality. Freshmen, well, they have a tendency to foul at inconvenient times and with maddening frequency. Keeping Griner on the floor may be a bigger challenge for Baylor than breaking in a load of young players.
Jayne Appel isn't 100 percent. Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said as much about her senior center, who is coming off offseason knee surgery for the second year in a row, after the team's win over Rutgers, the end of a very good starting weekend for the No. 2 Cardinal. Appel finished with 11 points against the Scarlet Knights on 3 of 10 shooting, and 12 rebounds. But VanDerveer sounds concerned.
"She has no ups," VanDerveer said. "She doesn't have spring."
When Connecticut ran through the 2008-09 season with a 39-0 record and cruised through the Final Four to a national title, they turned an entire season, thousands of games involving hundreds of teams, into an exercise in inevitability.
At the cusp of a new college season, the biggest question is: Can the Huskies do that again? Or will the search for a new point guard to replace Renee Montgomery will bring UConn back to the pack?
Connecticut is the undisputed No. 1 team in the nation at its start, the unanimous choice in both national polls. But, of course. The Huskies have Maya Moore and Tina Charles, two of the top three or four players in the country, they have outstanding role players such as Kalnna Greene and Kaili McLaren. They have Geno Auriemma, who embraces the role of front-runner in a big, enthusiastic bear hug.
Nikki Caldwell gets to go home for the holiday, so from that perspective, this trip is already a success.
Two weeks ago, Pat Summitt surveyed the national scene and said this:
Change doesn't always come quickly.
STANFORD, Calif. -- Jim Harbaugh talked a little bit about hubris early this week, the danger of thinking you are more than you are.
The Sacramento Monarchs, one of the 
Tina Charles' stat line in the box score looks just fine by almost any measure: 15 points, 11 rebounds in 18 minutes.
SAN ANTONIO -- Tennessee and Connecticut in the same gym, but not on the court at the same time. Maybe San Antonio will bring Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma back together, but not on this night.
What have we learned after one weekend of the college season?
When Connecticut ran through the 2008-09 season with a 39-0 record and cruised through the Final Four to a national title, they turned an entire season, thousands of games involving hundreds of teams, into an exercise in inevitability.
