Pat was very gracious in helping Geno get the UConn program up to speed. She booked home-and-home annual series. Later, after UConn became a serious rival, she was not, I think, that happy with what she had accomplished. In my humble opinion, Pat was as successful as she was, not because she was a great coach in terms of on-court strategy, but because she was one of the first, along with Leon Barmore at La. Tech, to realize the potential of women's basketball. Pat's strategy seemed to me to be to recruit tremendous athletes, as tall as possible, and beat other teams into the ground with rebounding at both ends of the court. Geno was MUCH more logical and scientific. It made for a very interesting contrast in styles of play.
I do not think there was any large amount of hype involved in the rivalry; each was dedicated to beating the other on the court, and, of course, both programs benefitted from the very public rivalry. The relationship remained relatively cordial and mutually respectful until the recruiting of Maya Moore, which Pat took very hard, and accused Geno of unspecified dirty dealing. I may get blown up for saying this, but it looked to me as if Pat's early onset mental problems clouded her judgement and made her say things that she otherwise would not have said. I always felt that it should not be held against her.
I can't remember when the home-and-home series changed from two games a year to one, but after the Maya incident Pat refused to book any more games
The fan rivalry was partly bs, but partly very real. At that time the UT fan board was The Summit, and much more vitriol was posted against Geno than Nan would have allowed on the Boneyard. Some really nasty personal remarks, which, of course, UConn fans greatly resented. Some of us actually went so far as to join The Summit to fire back, but we were mostly offed in short order.
Wow! I had no intention of going on at such length. And again, these are only my impressions, and may be very different from those of other fans. I have been following the Huskies pretty much since the Shea Ralph era, and really got hooked when my wife became, for a couple of years, the liason from an academic department at UConn to the Athletic
Department. We generally got unused student tickets to sit in the Parents' section, and got fairly acquainted with some of the players' folks. The thing I remember most about that was someone's mom saying; "Sue is always thinking two plays ahead, but Diana doesn't think at all; she doesn't have to!"
