Auriemma and McCallie's showdown highlights Duke-UConn matchup

Every champion has its challenger.

As No. 2 Duke faces No. 1 Connecticut Tuesday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium, a coach with eight national titles in the Huskies' Geno Auriemma will square off with the Blue Devils' Joanne P. McCallie, who is still searching for her first championship.

During Auriemma's 28-year tenure, Connecticut has risen to national prominence as a perennial top-ranked team and national championship contender. As his team has performed on the court, Auriemma's popularity and celebrity have skyrocketed, making him one of the biggest faces of women's college basketball.

In contrast sits McCallie, a seventh-year head coach at a Duke program that has yet to make a Final Four during her time, despite McCallie's guiding her team to the Elite Eight in four consecutive seasons. Although some might argue that this is the marquis matchup of the season on the court, McCallie remains focused on the details of her team's play rather than the magnitude of the situation.

"There's a whole season to play," McCallie said. "It's important to get an opportunity to have two teams go after it. That's a good thing, and that's the story on the media side. For us, this is one game. We've got a lot of games to play."

McCallie's teams have not fared well against Connecticut in the past, dating back to an opening-round loss in the 1995 NCAA tournament while she was the head coach at Maine. Last year, Duke trailed by two points heading into halftime before the Huskies—who would go on to win the national championship—outplayed the Blue Devils in a 30-point blowout.

Although Duke has been an ACC champion and ranked consistently in the top 10 teams in the country, the Blue Devils have rarely been able to play hard for a full game against Connecticut. Last season's loss was a prime example of what senior guard Tricia Liston hopes will not happen again.

"We've never really played a full 40 minutes," Liston said. "We've kind of got outside of ourselves or lost focus. I don't really know what exactly that's due to but I definitely would say we haven't put two good halves together since we played them in the past. That really hurts us. You can't play against a good team for one half and expect to win."

In his long and successful tenure, Auriemma's trademark has been his ability as an in-game manager. Connecticut teams are known for their intensity and pedigree just as Auriemma is for his perfectionism.

The Huskie program has had the consistent presence of Auriemma to rely on for the past 28 years, while Duke has had McCalle for merely a fraction of that amount of time. That difference in consistency is one that McCallie points to as the cause for a tradition of competitive play and winning with the Connecticut program.

"When there's a change in coaching, its starting all over again.... For example if there was a change at Connecticut, I'd like to see the person [following] Geno," McCallie said. "If I'm in year seven at Duke, then I'm in year seven at Duke. That's not year 27, so it takes time to get great players. It takes time when you lose a couple years. You lose a couple years as there's a lot of transition. I think when you have even more known programs it takes even longer because there's more things engrained."

McCallie's tenure at Duke may have just begun, and along with it, has been the opportunity to change the dynamics of the Blue Devil program. Although that process has taken time, McCallie has begun to carve out an identity for herself and her team on the national stage much like Auriemma once did.

Tuesday night may be Duke's first opportunity to claim a victory against the Huskies. Although this puts the Blue Devils no closer to a national championship, a regular-season victory against the defending national champions would send shockwaves through the college basketball world. For McCallie, it would be a statement win against one of the most iconic coaches in college basketball history.

It took Auriemma 10 years to finally win a national title with Connecticut, but once he managed to get the Huskies over the hump, the accolades continued to follow. Soon, Connecticut became the school that brought in the nation's top talent along with Tennessee and head coach Pat Summit. Both Auriemma and Summit developed a rivalry between the two programs that produced some of the most exciting women's college basketball games in recent memory.

With that success came with what McCallie terms a "monopoly" on the women's college basketball. The era of one or two powerhouse schools easily beating every other team is slowly coming to an end with increased parity in the game, something she hopes that Duke can play a role in.

"We're trying to have a shift in women's basketball against teams that have been around a long time," McCallie said. "The success that Connecticut has had is indisputable. Its a monopoly. Its been a long time. That's kind of the fun part of what we're chasing. We're trying to be the shift of some sorts. It takes time, and there's no shortcut."