By Karen Bailis
TAMPA -- Yeah, politics make strange bedfellows, but in the women's basketball post-season those bedmates get even stranger.
After a season that raised the rancor between the University of Connecticut and the University of Tennessee so high that UN peacekeepers have been called in, the sight of UConn and UTenn fans cheering for the same team had me wondering if I'd entered an alternate universe at the University of South Florida Sun Dome.
Nope, it was the WBCA High School All-America game on Saturday as part of the women's NCAA Final Four, and it was stunning for its offensive output. The final result, 114-79, was a new record for points scored. It wasn't a surprise that a game that featured four Tennessee recruits and two UConn recruits would reach triple digits. But it was a little disconcerting to see the future Vols and Huskies play so well -- together, on the victorious Red Team.
To a New Yorker, the crowd looked like it was ready for a Mets game, what with all the blue and orange. But no, these fans were the Husky Hardcores and the Orange Crush -- and they were cheering for the same team and calling out the names of these college stars-to-be.
Rival-come-lately Rutgers also had four recruits in the game, on the losing White Team.
The high-octane Red Team, led by the nation's top high schooler Elena Delle Donne (UConn, 15 points, 11 rebounds) and Tiffany Hayes (Tennessee, 18 points), ran circles around the White Team, which was led by Nnemkadi Ogwumike (Stanford, 17 points).
How did the Red Team keep the UConn-Tennessee animus from ruining team chemistry? They didn't talk about their teams-to-be, Delle Donne said. Rivalry be damned unless the much-anticipated showdown between the two comes to fruition in Tuesday's final.
"We put it aside," Delle Donne said. "Now, it's on."
Comments (1)
Sorry, but Tiffany Hayes is UConn bound, with Elena Della Donne, who had 17 points in the game. I believe, however, that there were four other players on the red team that are going to Tennessee.