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 A Meek end for Tennessee dynasty
Posted: Tuesday March 23, 1999 12:22 PM
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- At first, there was nothing about Monday's East Regional Final between Tennessee and Duke that suggested it would be Chamique Holdsclaw 's last game as a Lady Vol. In warmups, Holdsclaw had moved about her teammates with her usual ease and had teased coach Pat Summitt 's eight-year-old son, Tyler , with the ball before lofting lazy shots from the paint. Nothing unusual. But then the game started. And when Holdsclaw started shooting, a surprise ending worthy of Greensboro native O. Henry was set in motion. One after another, the mid-range jumpers that have been her signature through four surpassingly brilliant years clanged off the rim or glanced off the glass. Through one torturous half, the most decorated, accomplished and celebrated woman to ever play the collegiate game came up empty, shooting 0-for-10 and nailing just one free throw. Her teammates weren't much help; as a team the Lady Vols shot 11-for-35 and went into the locker room at halftime down 35-24. Not that this was cause for worry for the Tennessee faithful; in last year's regional final against North Carolina, the Lady Vols had trailed by 12 with seven minutes left in the second half before Holdsclaw woke up and led her team to a 76-70 win. Few in the Greensboro Coliseum doubted the Lady Vols could do it again, especially against ACC champion Duke, a team that is an afterthought even on its own campus. (Though the school is less than an hour from Greensboro, Duke fans -- which included Final Four-bound men's players Shane Battier, Trajan Langdon and Chris Carrawell -- were outnumbered about 4-1 by orange-clad Tennessee fans.) And, as would be expected from a team bent on winning its fourth consecutive national title, the Lady Vols cut the deficit to four less than two minutes into the second half.
They got as close as one, but no closer. Having faced Tennessee once before this season -- a 74-60 loss on Dec. 6 -- the Blue Devils weren't intimidated by the Lady Vols' pressure or myth. "They're just another team," said Duke guard Georgia Schweitzer before the game. Thanks to regional MVP Schweitzer, who had 22 points and five rebounds and was largely responsible for Holdsclaw's nadir night -- 8 points, tying her season low, on 2-for-18 shooting -- and Duke's 69-63 win, that's all Tennessee is now, another team that isn't heading to the Final Four. When Holdsclaw fouled out of the last and worst game of her career with 25 seconds left, she walked straight into the arms of Summitt and stood there sobbing, as teammate and fellow senior Kellie Jolly would do when she fouled out a few moments later. As freshmen four years ago, the two had discussed being the first collegians to win four national titles. They came tantalizingly close. "I never thought we were invincible," a teary Holdsclaw said later. "But I never thought we'd lose." Kelli Anderson is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated for Women and a frequent contributor to siforwomen.com.
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