Scheduling Insights, Part I:
As for Duke vs. TN/UConn, it is not that often that Duke has played both Tennessee and UConn in the same season, as part of the regular season games. It happened in 1998-1999, when Duke played both UConn and Tennessee on neutral sites in the regular season and played Tennessee again in the NCAA Tournament. It also happened in 2002-2003 (Duke played UConn and Tennessee in the regular season, then Tennessee again in the NCAA Tournament), 2003-2004 (Duke played both schools in the regular season), 2005-2006 (Duke played both, but played Tennessee in the regular season and UConn in the NCAA Tournament), and 2007-2008 (Duke played UConn on a neutral court and Tennessee at home).
Gail Goestenkors preferred to play Pat Summitt and Tennessee; she was friendly with Coach Summitt and enjoyed their matchups. There also was some bad blood between Goestenkors and Geno Auriemma over the Brittany Hunter situation.
During her last nine years at Duke (the 1998-1999 season to 2006-2007), Duke and Tennessee played nine times, with Duke winning 5 of those games. The first five games were played on neutral courts; the last four games were part of home-and-home series. During the same time, Duke and UConn played four times (once on a neutral court, once in the NCAA Tournament, and two games as part of a home-and-home series), with the teams splitting the four games.
Joanne P. McCallie took over the Duke program in April 2007. By then, Duke and Tennessee had already agreed to another home-and-home series (this was agreed to when Goestenkors was still the coach). So Duke and Tennessee played in the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 season, splitting the games. Duke has played UConn five times in Coach P's previous five seasons, with this month's matchup being the sixth time (this is her sixth season at Duke). Duke is now 0-6 against UConn in these games; five of the losses have been between 26 and 36 points.
Coach P had a prior relationship with Coach Auriemma and prefers to play UConn. They have a shared Italian heritage, and she is one of the few female coaches who "gets" his sense of humor and "gives it right back" to him. They also had a home-and-home series when she was at Michigan State. The Duke-UConn series has been renewed the next two years (home-and-home).
Coach P did not have the same friendship with Coach Summitt. There have been rumors that Coach Summitt was upset over the 2005 Final Four game, though not sure of the specifics. Also, two former Lady Vols - Niya Butts and Semeka Randall - had very short assistant coaching stints with Coach P (totaling three years between the two of them) before they left for other assistant coaching positions. The scuttlebutt is that Randall did not have very nice things to say about Coach P; not sure what Butts thought.