They got to feeling sorry for themselves and we allowed that. When Nykesha got hurt the following year we handled it much better. We were 10 minutes away from getting to the Final Four without our star player. They are going to be all right and they will play again. The other players are going to have to step up and they will because they have been ready to play more minutes.
Teams also have to learn how to win.
The Huskies finally emerged out of the shadows of Tennessee when they beat the big bad wolf on an April night in the Target Dome in Minneapolis, Minn., 70-64, to win their first national championship in 1995. They did it again when they crushed Pat Summit's team 71-52 for their second national title last year. UConn split two games with the Lady Vols this season and may well run into them again in the NCAA tournament. Our mental approach is that you have to play every game like it is against Tennessee or another top team. Otherwise, you have lulls and you don't play well against lesser teams.