FanHouse Pat Summitt

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.

SAN ANTONIO -- I should have known better.

Never leave a Geno Auriemma press conference. At least, not without leaving behind the tape recorder.

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.

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.

Dunks in women's basketball have been like meteors in the night sky, fleeting moments of excitement, flashes that fade quickly until the next one shows up. Six women have dunked in a college game, totaling 15 dunks.

When a dunk happens, it makes the highlight reel, sparks a brief discussion about the impact on the women's game and then fades away again.

But along comes Baylor's Brittney Griner, who promises a meteor shower. It's no overstatement to say that Griner will change the women's game beginning Sunday when the seventh-ranked Bears take on No. 8 Tennessee in Knoxville in the State Farm Tip-off Classic.

Kay Yow is still very much a presence in the North Carolina State women's basketball program.

Her name is on the athletic department's Wall of Fame, and on the basketball court at Reynolds Coliseum. Her photo still hangs in the women's basketball locker room.

"She was North Carolina State basketball, and you don't and you can't wipe that away with a new staff," said new N.C. State head coach Kellie Jolly Harper.

Last we saw Pat Summitt, she was knocking heads in Knoxville, running her demoralized Lady Vols team through a rigorous practice just days after the season was over. Yes, over.

Her Tennessee team lost a first-round NCAA Tournament game for the first time in the history of the program to upstart Ball State and she was making a point, one that's still clearly and quickly articulated five months later.

"Losing is unacceptable at Tennessee," Summitt said Monday after finishing up a workout with several of her players. "They were the first team to be in that situation. They were obviously hurt and embarrassed. There's no question they knew that the former players were really disappointed and really upset about it. That had an impact too."

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. -- Pat Summitt wondered when her young Tennessee team would finally get through its growing pains and finally figure it out.

Ball State gave her the emphatic answer: maybe next year.

The Cardinals stunned the two-time defending national champions 71-55 in the opening round of the NCAA tournament on Sunday night, snapping one of the more remarkable streaks in college basketball history.

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There is a SportsCenter commercial with Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt where Kenny Mayne fires off puns that use the coach's name and team, only for Summitt to respond that she's got "this coaching thing down pat."

I concur.

Thursday night, Summitt became the first Division I coach, men's or women's, to reach 1,000 wins as her Volunteers beat up on Georgia 73-43.

We mentioned yesterday that Tennessee' women's basketball coach Pat Summit had threatened promised to show up at the men's Tennessee/Florida game tonight in a cheerleader outfit, and, well ... she wasn't kidding. Here's Pat (with thanks to the always reliable Awful Announcing), showing off her getaway sticks:


I got a little bit nervous for the male cheerleaders lifting Pat up to the top of the mini-pyramid there. Had she gone up any higher, someone was getting an upskirt shot. And you just wouldn't recover from something like that.

Honestly, though, it's hard to make fun of this. If you're a Tennessee student, it was probably a hell of a lot of fun to witness that. Cliche or not, it is school spirit, it is part of what makes college athletics great, and plus, for maybe the first time in his life, Peyton Manning was probably not the goofiest white person in the room.

The only thing at all aggravating about it was Dick Vitale, forcing out the staggered chuckles and the "Ohhh!"s like he was being held at knifepoint and forced to do it. I try to be nice to Vitale, but ... it's like he was trying his best to ruin that.