HARTFORD, Conn. _ ESPN knew what it wanted. The sports network was searching for a women's basketball game to be broadcast nationally on Martin Luther King Jr. Day of the upcoming year, but it couldn't be just any game. They wanted it to be big, impressive, competitive. So, network officials called UConn.
It made sense _ a team rising through the ranks of the sport quickly and boasting the nation's best player and a charismatic coach. A phone call later, they had the Huskies. What they did next in the season of 1994 would become one of the most pivotal moments in college women's basketball. They started looking for an opponent, and it didn't take long before they chose. Who could guarantee a game worthy of the national spotlight?
Tennessee.
Over the next 12 years fans were treated to some of the highest level basketball, featuring players who would go on to become Olympians and WNBA superstars. It was a rivalry that came around right as women's basketball was gaining national attention, helping skyrocket interest in the sport right before the launch of the WNBA. Spectators were pulled in by the competitive games, contentious atmospheres and bad blood between the sport's most high-profile coaches.
The rivalry will make its return, it was announced over the summer, and fans will get at least two more games in the series.
"It's really exciting," UConn alumna and Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi said. "That rivalry was one of the big reasons I went to Connecticut. I think as a little kid you're either Connecticut or Tennessee, so it's nice to have that rivalry back with two of the top programs going at it again."
