Basketball - Lady Vols Re-establish a Legacy

CLEVELAND ? After nearly a decade without a national championship during creeping parity in women?s college basketball, Tennessee has reasserted itself as a dynasty.

With a 59-46 victory over Rutgers on Tuesday night, Coach Pat Summitt won her seventh national title and first since 1998. She has now won 947 career games in 33 seasons at Tennessee ? 58 more than Bob Knight of Texas Tech, the most-victorious men?s coach in Division I.

Summitt, 54, is three titles shy of matching the 10 won by John Wooden with his dominant U.C.L.A. teams of the 1960?s and 1970?s.

The taller Lady Vols (34-3) dominated the offensive boards and defeated Rutgers (27-9) at its own game ? a hounding, trapping defense that disrupted the Scarlet Knights into 20-for-49 shooting and forced 18 turnovers.

Tennessee?s 6-foot-4 forward, Candace Parker, faced double and triple teams inside a box-and-one defense, but displayed the resourcefulness that makes her indisputably the sport?s best collegiate player. She brought the ball upcourt against the Rutgers press, scored 17 points, grabbed 7 rebounds, dished off 3 assists and was named the Final Four?s most outstanding player.

The 6-4 center Nicky Anosike hauled down 16 rebounds for the Lady Vols, while point guard Shannon Bobbitt scored 13 points and hit four 3-point shots. Center Kia Vaughn was the only Rutgers player to reach double figures with 20 points.

?This is not about me winning No. 7; this is about this team winning their first,? Summitt said.

After a sluggish start, Tennessee closed the first half with a 17-6 run to take a 29-18 lead. Alberta Auguste, a reserve forward, scored 8 of her 10 total points and grabbed 5 rebounds during the run. Yet it was Parker who steadied her team, making three sharp passes for layups, lofting a theatrical shot along the baseline, yo-yoing inside and out so Rutgers could not entrap her.

Parker muscled underneath to open the second half, then dribbled between her legs and banked a shot to put the Lady Vols ahead, 33-20. Rutgers closed within 35-28, but Parker remained assured. She grabbed an offensive rebound and fired the ball to Bobbitt for a 3-pointer. Two more 3-pointers by Bobbitt inflated the margin to 46-30.

Rutgers clawed within 50-42, but Parker fought for an offensive rebound, handled the ball in the backcourt, drew three fouls down the stretch and hit six free throws to keep Tennessee?s lead comfortable and indelible.

?You are witnessing the best player in the world,? Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer said of Parker.

?There is nobody who comes close to her.?

And yet, Stringer said, she believed the Scarlet Knights could have withstood Parker?s performance.

?Who broke our backs was Bobbitt,? she said of Tennessee?s 5-2 point guard, who had no assists but hit those decisive 3-pointers in the second half.

By a wide margin, Bobbitt outplayed the Rutgers guard Epiphanny Prince, her former teammate at Murry Bergtraum High in Lower Manhattan. After having scored 113 points in a high school game, Prince finished with two negligible free throws and did not sufficiently challenge Bobbitt on defense.

?She?s a midget,? Stringer said of Bobbitt. ?All you had to do was remain relatively close. We stayed too far.?

The defeat ended an inspiring season for the young Scarlet Knights, who began 2-4, lost access to their locker room and practice gear, then recovered to reach the title game. On Tuesday, though, Stringer found her players too quiet, perhaps tired or overwhelmed by the moment. In any case, Rutgers found itself overmatched on the offensive boards by a margin of 24-14.

?We did a horrible job at the beginning,? forward Essence Carson said. ?By the time we thought about rebounding, it was all over.?

Meanwhile, the victory for Tennessee ended a period of professional frustration for Summitt, who had been to the Final Four five times since 1998 without taking home a title. Connecticut made a run of four championships during that fallow period. And Purdue, Notre Dame, Baylor and Maryland also claimed titles, as big-time football schools began to invest more resources and ambition in women?s basketball.

Now the trophy returns to Tennessee, which won previous titles in 1987, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1997 and 1998. The Southeastern Conference owns the three most valued titles in college sports, with Tennessee holding the women?s basketball championship and Florida holding the trophies for men?s basketball and football.

?In order to win a national championship, I think you have to have a go-to player,? said Summitt, referring to Parker, the Lady Vols? first dominant star since Chamique Holdsclaw graduated in 1999. ?And that?s something we don?t always consistently have. It makes a difference when you have someone that can step up and make the big plays and make everyone else better on the floor.?

Parker had said she needed a championship to validate her career at Tennessee. Now she has one, and she says she plans to return for her junior season.

?This is something I?ve dreamed of since I was a little kid,? Parker said.

?This is what all of us came to Tennessee to do, and we did it.?

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