The Penn women's basketball team decided to attend a showing of the movie Miracle last night after finding out its opponent in the first round of the 2004 NCAA Tournament. The Quakers knew full well that it would take that kind of an effort to overcome the situation they will find themselves in next weekend, when their entire season will be encapsulated in one word.
Connecticut.
The Quakers will meet the No. 3 Connecticut Huskies, led by near-consensus Player of the Year Diana Taurasi, at the 8,754-seat Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, Conn. only an hour-and-a-half's drive from the defending national champion's home court in Storrs, Conn. at a time to be determined next Sunday.
The Huskies shockingly dropped to the East region's No. 2 seed, after losing to No. 25 Villanova at the Pavilion in their next-to-last regular season game and then falling in the first round of the Big East Tournament to No. 23 Boston College at the Hartford Civic Center one of Connecticut's two home courts.
Watching the tournament's selection show at the Dunning Coaches Center, the players had to wait until the very last first-round game was announced denying them a chance to play in warmer climates such as Tempe, Ariz.; Austin, Texas; or Santa Barbara, Calif. But once it became clear that they would be playing Connecticut, there was a palpable change in mood in the room. Sadness changed to shock, and then, when the matchup was finally shown, cheers erupted.
"We're very excited," Penn coach Kelly Greenberg said. "We actually talked about UConn a few weeks ago, our team. The night Villanova beat them, the girls said, 'Oh, we can beat Villanova, which means we can beat UConn!'"
Greenberg acknowledged the probability that the Bridgeport crowd will be partisan to the Huskies, who have one of the largest followings in women's college basketball. But Penn has played in front of hostile crowds before in the postseason. Three years ago, when the Quakers won their only other Ivy League title, they had to travel to Lubbock, Texas where Texas Tech won, 100-57, in front of a crowd of over 14,000 on its home court.
"We know it's going to be a UConn crowd which is great," Greenberg said. "I think it will be a great experience to play in front of a sellout."
Penn senior guard Mikaelyn Austin was a little more blunt.
"Anything is better than Lubbock, Texas," she said. "There were about 13,000 people in the town, and 13,000 people at the game."
Greenberg described Taurasi as "in my mind ... probably the best college basketball player ever," and Huskies coach Geno Auriemma, a Philadelphia native, as "the PR man in women's basketball."
But she drew inspiration from the challenge that her team will face. "My last game as a player at La Salle, we beat UConn in the first round of the NCAA Tournament," she said. "And believe me, I'll be talking about that this week with our players at UConn, too."
"I'm looking forward to playing in front of a packed gym," Penn sophomore center Jennifer Fleischer said. "It's always been one of my dreams to play in front of a big crowd and I look at it just as a huge opportunity."
For Penn senior forward Jewel Clark, this game will be the culmination of four outstanding years on perhaps the biggest stage the Penn program has ever known.
She called it "an opportunity, that's all it is, something to step up to, nothing to back down to at all."
"People aren't familiar with Penn, so there are people on our team they are going to have to get familiar with, too," she said. "You can't give them all the glory because we're successful in ourselves and we want to win."
This is the first time since 1998 that UConn, winners of three of the last four national championships, has not been a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. This year, the honor went to No. 4 Penn State, which won the Big Ten regular season championship and lost to No. 6 Purdue in the championship game of the Big Ten Tournament. The Nittany Lions had been projected by many to be the East's No. 2 seed, creating a potential matchup with the Quakers at Temple's Liacouras Center.
