Colleges

Stringer's path back to final a very long one

She has been around women's basketball long enough to remember when it barely existed, the way her high school in Pennsylvania didn't offer sports for girls, the way the state of Iowa still had six-player girls basketball - three up and three back - when she started coaching the Hawkeyes.

By GREG AUMAN
Published April 3, 2007

CLEVELAND - She has been around women's basketball long enough to remember when it barely existed, the way her high school in Pennsylvania didn't offer sports for girls, the way the state of Iowa still had six-player girls basketball - three up and three back - when she started coaching the Hawkeyes.

C. Vivian Stringer was already in her 11th season when she took tiny Cheyney State - with a women's basketball budget of $3,000 - to the title game in the first-ever women's Final Four in 1982. A full generation later, she is back in the championship game tonight with upset-minded Rutgers, seeking the one line missing from a resume already in the Hall of Fame.

"To top it off with a national championship, that would be just great. It's overwhelming sometimes," Rutgers forward Essence Carson said Monday. "I think about what I would have to say to her afterward (if they won) and my mind just goes blank."

Stringer has accomplished so much - 777 wins in more than 1,000 games over 36 seasons - that's it's easy to forget how much she has done. LSU coach Bob Starkey, whose team was held by Rutgers to a Final Four record-low 35 points Sunday, opened his postgame comments by congratulating Stringer on reaching her first championship, unaware she'd been there with Cheyney in the sport's infancy.

To see her team running up and down the court in transition offers a private amusement to Stringer, knowing such a feat was once thought impossible in the sport's six-player days.

"The statement was that girls couldn't run as much because they may have a heart attack," she said. "They just couldn't. Their hearts couldn't take it. We see now that they can, and now they're even dunking. So the game has evolved quite a bit."

Rutgers, which has already knocked off the tournament's top overall seed, Duke, and dominated LSU in Sunday's semifinal, retains its underdog status in tonight's final. Want an intimidating stat? Tennessee is 44-0 in its tournament history against teams seeded fourth or lower - as a fourth seed, Rutgers would be the lowest seed ever to win a women's championship.

Nobody has to remind the Scarlet Knights of that. They've been eliminated from each of the past two tournaments by Tennessee, losing on the same Cleveland floor in last year's region semifinals, and a year earlier in Philadelphia in a region final. That said, the Knights are defiant, like their coach, in the face of continued adversity.

"Throughout the entire month of March, there's been upsets," Carson said. "Any day can be any team's game."

It's an easy contrast, Rutgers making its championship debut and Tennessee seeking its seventh title in its 17th Final Four. Just as Stringer seeks an elusive title, Tennessee star Candace Parker, nearing the end of her sophomore season without a crown, lamented that it's been "way too long" since the Vols' last national title, way back in 1997.

"They've got the great coach and the great players and the great tradition," Stringer said. "They're used to playing in pressure situations, they've been to the Final Four. ... So Candace says that her career isn't complete, I imagine that's the way she feels, and that should be."

Stringer's teams are known for their defense - this year's Knights are allowing 44.2 points a game in the NCAA Tournament, and the Vols are coming off a semifinal game in which they shot 27 percent, the lowest ever by a winning team in a Final Four game.

Stringer and Summitt, who also lost in the 1982 Final Four, have remained close friends throughout a combined 69 seasons as head coaches. And if Summitt should get her seventh title at the expense of Stringer's first, she won't think any less of the Rutgers coach.

"Winning a championship is special for any team and any coach," Summit said, "but I don't think it necessarily defines that you are better than anyone else. Usually, it just means you have better players."

Fast Facts:

No. 1 Tennessee vs. No. 4 Rutgers

Women's championship, 8:30 tonight, Cleveland TV/radio: ESPN, ESPN2

[Last modified April 2, 2007, 23:18:08]