COLLEGE: Woman's basketball gaining popularity on ‘Tobacco Road'

For years Tobacco Road has been a bastion of great men's basketball with North Carolina, Duke, N.C. State and Wake Forest. The women's game isn't too far behind.

Last Monday featured three of the top four teams in the country playing within a few miles of each other as No. 4 Duke visited N.C. State before top-ranked Connecticut played No. 2 North Carolina.

"It's a very exciting time for this area, the Triangle, and all the teams involved," Duke coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "We want women's basketball to be as popular as men's basketball, and what I mean by that is attendance wise and driving attendance and those things. When these kinds of things happen, you have a chance to do that."

A school record crowd of 12,722 fans took in Connecticut's 30-point rout of North Carolina while another 3,000 took in Duke's 61-58 overtime victory.

"I think it speaks to the high level of play our programs have reached. The ACC has become a powerhouse conference for women's basketball, and the fans in this area are starting to get very excited about the sport," North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell said.

"Every time one of us plays each other you can expect a great game, and that can only help to continue growing women's basketball."

The popularity of women's basketball in the area was a factor in McCallie's decision to come to Duke two years ago.

"Absolutely," she said. "I just had to get here. I just thought, ‘What a neat thing.' So many great things have been done - what Gail (Goestenkors) did at Duke, and then Sylvia and Kay (Yow)."

While N.C. State hasn't been nearly as strong as Duke or North Carolina the past few seasons, the Wolfpack have taken both to overtime this season. Wake Forest got off to the best start in school history winning its first 12 games before falling to Richmond.

"It's a great brand of basketball," said North Carolina State coach Stephanie Glance, who is filling in for Kay Yow for the rest of the season as she battles a recurrence of cancer.

"It's exciting to watch. There's a lot of energy, a lot of intensity, enthusiasm, all the things that fans can really appreciate."

FABULOUS FINISH: Cal's focus all season has been on finishing. The Golden Bears finally did it in a 57-54 victory against archrival Stanford earlier this month, staying unbeaten in Pac-10 play at 5-0.

"It's one game," Cal coach Joanne Boyle said. "We can't take a dip. This is where you say, ‘Push, push, push.'"

That "finishing" theme developed after they lost on a buzzer-beater to George Washington in the second round of the NCAA tournament last season. Cal had led most of the way, but instead missed a chance to reach the regional semifinals after also coming up short on a chance at the Pac-10 regular-season title - two of the team's top goals last season.

The Golden Bears also led Oklahoma by 26 points at halftime back on Dec. 13 only to give that game away in a heartbreaking 86-75 defeat.

"We can play great basketball for two halves, we're capable of that," Boyle said. "We are capable of winning a Pac-10 title."

After the Oklahoma loss, the Bears then had too much time to think about it. They had to wait to play again until Dec. 29 after their scheduled game with Baylor on Dec. 22 was canceled because the Lady Bears got stuck in a snowstorm after playing at Oregon and couldn't get to the Bay Area.

"This was the next chance we had to play a big team because we didn't get to play Baylor," said leading scorer Ashley Walker, who fought off leg cramps and dehydration in the Stanford game. "We showed we can come through adversity. We dug deep. We really wanted it."

Cal's players know there's plenty of basketball left, too. Like their Feb. 14 rematch with Stanford at Maples Pavilion that will be just as important.

"It always comes down to the gritty plays at the end," Walker said.

HISTORY LESSON: Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer couldn't be at the presidential inauguration so she made sure she and her players watched it on television.

The veteran coach, who was the first African-American to reach 800 victories, had a ticket to President Obama's swearing in on Tuesday but gave it up because her team was playing West Virginia that night.

So during the pregame meal she made the 21st-ranked Scarlet Knights go downstairs at the local hotel where they were eating to watch the historic moment.

"She told us to grab our plates and go downstairs and watch it," senior Kia Vaughn said.

"It was like a parent telling her children to do something and you weren't about to say no."

Vaughn said it was moving to watch the swearing in and saw a tear in her coach's eye.

"It was a very emotional moment," she said. "Coach was crying."