Thursday, Jan. 8, 2004 | 10:05 a.m.
Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
For me, the college basketball season doesn't officially begin until the first weekend in January or whenever Occidental leaves town, whichever comes first. Maybe it's because when I was a kid, that's roughly when it started.
Nobody paid attention to college hoops until the bowl games were over and the first Big Ten Game of the Week came on TV. So by the time Bill Flemming was setting the scene at St. John or Chrysler or Williams Arena, my Converse All-Stars were laced up nice and tight. I was ready to pick and roll.
While those venerable basketball palaces are still standing, my Bob McAdoo Columbia blue North Carolina high-tops didn't make the cut. But retro Clydes are pretty much back in style, so it was only fitting that I prop by blue suede basketball shoes on the coffee table before setting down with the remote control, a cold beverage and one of those 3-inch thick TV guides to get reacquainted with college basketball last Saturday.
Other than the Oklahoma players wearing what appeared to be skirts for their game against Princeton (when I was in high school, the bench warmers used to get stuck with the baggy shorts while the good players got all the size 30s and 32s), the most remarkable thing about my day was that of the five games I watched, the best one was played by women.
I stumbled onto the UConn-Duke women's game during a TV timeout at Xavier-Alabama. It was just about the time the Devils with the blue dresses on -- actually, Duke was wearing black, and its uniforms fit a little more snugly than those of the Sooners -- were mounting a comeback that neither Douglas MacArthur nor George Foreman could have imagined.
Duke, which had fallen farther behind than the Washington Generals, kept running and shooting and pressing. And by the time there were two minutes to go ... it still was down 11.
But coming down the stretch, indomitable UConn, which had won 69 home games in a row, handled the basketball as if it had Dick Vitale's DNA all over it.
The Huskies turned the ball over six times in seven possessions. And with a sellout crowd of more than 16,000 looking on in disbelief, Duke's Jessica Foley, of Wodongo, Australia, tied UConn's kangaroo down with a frantic 3-point boomerang at the buzzer.
Duke 68, Connecticut 67. If you were still watching ... well, then you must have a thing for Diana Taurasi. Great teams like UConn don't blow 2-point leads at home, much less 11-point ones in the last two minutes.
It wasn't, however, as if UConn lost to a bunch of brownie scouts, as Duke was rated just three spots behind the Huskies, at No. 4. Still, anytime UConn loses it's news, and this is what the women's game should use in its neverending campaign to win over converts (read: men).
With all due respect to Pat Summit down at Tennessee, UConn has become to women's basketball what UCLA was to the men's game a generation ago. Only Geno Auriemma, its cocky coach, is a lot easier to dislike than John Wooden, the avuncular Wizard of Westwood.
For that reason, and all those championship banners hanging from the rafters of its beautiful new on-campus arena, UConn could easily be on the verge of becoming the Mata Hari of women's basketball.
With parity dominating the men's game, where the No. 1 team in the nation seems to lose just as soon as it is anointed as such, you don't need one of those insider subscriptions ESPN sells on its website to differentiate between the haves and have-nots in women's basketball.
Or in Duke's case, the have-not-quite-as-muches.
Trailing the best team in women's basketball by 18 points in the second half and 11 inside of two minutes to go on a court where UConn hadn't lost since 1986, Duke did something incredible, unimaginable and unthinkable last Saturday.
It kept me from switching back to a men's game.
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