Big Shot Makes Rutgers Vanish

The play that more than any other put Tennessee into Sunday’s NCAA women’s basketball final arrived with 12:23 to play and it was inevitable that it would be successful.

Tennessee, tied in knots for the most part by a Rutgers defense that was every bit as ferocious as billed, had a two-point lead before national player of the year Tamika Catchings drilled a three-point shot.

It came with the shot clock about to run down and it also came after Tennessee’s 6-foot-5 sophomore center, Michelle Snow, was open twice inside on the possession but Tennessee’s perimeter players never saw her.

So Catchings’ three-pointer was the play that for the first time energized several thousand orange-clad Lady Vols’ fans in the crowd of 20,060 at First Union Center, sent Coach Pat Summitt’s reserves into sideline orbit and set a new tempo for the game’s final minutes.

Tennessee won, 64-54, in a tough, defense-comes-first game that showed, Summitt later said with some pride, that her athletes could play defense too.

Rutgers, a team with admitted offensive shortcomings, simply couldn’t win against an opponent that could score when it absolutely had to. The Scarlet Knights couldn’t.

The Lady Vols’ leader on a night they won a national semifinal game for the ninth time in 12 tries was freshman Kara Lawson, a 5-9 point guard who bench-presses 235 pounds and played error-free basketball in the biggest game of her life.

She scored 19 points, made all eight of her free throws and had no turnovers in 35 minutes.

“Nothing Kara does for us surprises me,” Summitt said.

“I have very high expectations of her. When the game was on the line tonight, she wanted the basketball and she made one good decision after another. She can beat you off the dribble or she can knock down the three.”

Lawson herself seemed stumped when asked if the rough, physical game was to her liking.

“I don’t know, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “I just like playing in the Final Four.”

Asked about Tennessee’s slow start--the Lady Vols (33-3) led at halftime, 28-26--Lawson shrugged.

“We hadn’t seen that defense before--it took us five or seven minutes just to figure out what they were doing,” she said.

“Halftime was key for us. Coach just told us if we came out and played Tennessee basketball, we’d put ourselves in the championship game.”

And it was the freshman from Alexandria, Va., who kick-started Tennessee’s 20th consecutive victory. She opened the second half by scoring on a drive down the middle and drove for another key basket minutes later to give the Lady Vols a 38-36 lead.

Catchings said Lawson’s drives opened up the Rutgers defense.

“In the first half, they played great defense,” said Catchings, who had 13 points and 12 rebounds.

“But when Kara penetrated the gaps, that changed it around. We could have stood around and shot threes all game long, but she changed the game. And she made all those free throws.”

Indeed. All eight of her free throws came after halftime, six in the final 3:48.

Tennessee made 39% of its shots, Rutgers (26-8) 37%, pretty much what both clubs limited opponents to all season.

Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer, who has taken three schools to the Final Four, confirmed the obvious--her team simply couldn’t score when it needed to.

“It would have been nice if we’d been able to execute better, but that speaks to Tennessee’s defense,” she said.

“I’m proud of my young ladies, they played so hard, but they missed too many shots. Tennessee is capable of playing as good as it has to to win. There’s something special about that team.”

A special team with a special freshman point guard and a special sophomore center in Snow.

Snow blocked seven shots and altered or prevented several others. When Catchings scored on a brilliant baseline drive with 8:22 to play, giving the Lady Vols a 47-39 lead, Snow set a devastating pick. A minute later, she swatted her sixth block.

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WOMEN’S FINAL FOUR

Connecticut: 89

Penn State: 67

The top-ranked Huskies rolled to their 15th consecutive victory. Page 9