Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt won her seventh national title Tuesday night, beating Rutgers 59-46 and re-establishing Tennessee as the top women's basketball program in the country. The victory (Summitt's 947th career win) also established Summitt as the best basketball coach -- male or female -- currently working in college basketball. And I'd got one step further than that and call her the best college basketball coach since John Wooden led UCLA's men's teams to 10 titles from 1964 to 1975.
Summitt has now won national championships in three different decades and coach of the year awards in three different decades, and when she's done coaching she'll have a total victory mark that no coach will be able to approach (for sake of comparison, she's five years younger than Mike Krzyzewski and more than 150 wins ahead of him).
No college basketball program will ever match what Wooden did at UCLA, but
Summitt's Tennessee teams come the closest. She's the best in the business.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-04-2007 @ 9:38AM
FAS1 said...
MAYBE THE BEST EVER!! SURE IS DIFFICULT TO ARGUE WITH SUCCESS!! AND PAT'S A HELLUVA CHEERLEADER, TOO!!
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4-04-2007 @ 10:27AM
Don said...
One caveat: before the last few years, there were 2-3 great women's teams, and dozens of other schools that cared enough to let their women's bb team to use the stadium parking lot for workouts. Not to take anything away from Pat Summitt, but the level of competition prior to now really helped her record, since she basically took on 20 cupcakes between every good team, every year.
That said, she IS a fantastic coach. Congrats to her and the ladies for a fine year.
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4-04-2007 @ 2:52PM
grantck said...
About Pat taking on several cupcakes in prior years, so did all other good teams. Remember, her schedule in recent years has been the toughest in the country.
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4-04-2007 @ 4:22PM
pfrazier said...
Congratulations, ladies Vols. You have played a GREAT game. And Pat Summit you are the best coach in the state. Hang in there! God bless you and I'm looking forward to seeing you next year.
GREAT GOOD PAT SUMMIT AND THE LADIES VOLS!
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