Summitt/Auriemma Feud Bad for Women's Hoops

Tennessee's Pat Summitt celebrates the Vols' latest championship
Getty Images / Al Messerschmidt

The Yankees and Red Sox are bitter rivals, but that rivalry is renewed nineteen times each year.

The Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders. Kobe's Lakers and Shaq's Miami Heat. Notre Dame and USC. All tremendous rivalries -- all games that draw extra attention from fans. It would be a real loss for the NFL, or Major League Baseball, or the NBA if those teams stopped playing each other.

But that's what's happening in women's college basketball -- as the Yankees and Red Sox of that sport, The Tennessee Lady Vols and Connecticut Huskies, are ending their twelve-year series -- games which typically feature teams in the top five -- because of an ongoing dispute between coaches Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma.

Auriemma and Summitt have never been particularly friendly -- they are polar opposites in style and personality. In a way, that may have added some "juice" to the rivalry, which has become the most heated -- and most hyped -- in women's college basketball, and one of the few regular-season games likely to attract interest from casual fans.

No more.

The last straw? Back in 2006, Tennessee accused Connecticut of a number of recruiting violations including the use of former players like Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird as recruiters and improperly arranging an internship at ESPN for Maya Moore.

The report didn't amount to much -- in March the NCAA ruled that Moore's visit to ESPN was a secondary rules violation and didn't assess any penalty. But Auriemma's tactics -- and Summitt's accusations -- seem to have finally driven a wedge between the bitter rivals.

One of the biggest knocks on women's hoops is that the league is incredibly top-heavy -- that there are six-to-eight really good teams, but no depth. A regular season schedule without the Tennessee/Connecticut game will only reinforce that perception -- increasing the possibility that the Lady Vols and Huskies will roll through their schedules largely unchallenged.

An optimist might suggest that this is just an opportunity for new rivalries to emerge -- Rutgers and Tennessee... or Connecticut and Carolina. And that's true. But it would be far better for the game if those rivalries emerged in addition to Vols/Huskies, and not as a replacement.