NOTEBOOK

ATLANTA – Title or no, Tennessee coaching icon Pat Summitt is planning to return to the sidelines.

“I don’t know what I would do with myself if I retired,” Summitt said before last night’s championship game against Connecticut. “I would drive my husband and son crazy and probably myself. I love this game, win or lose. It’s still in me. And when it’s not, I will know. I really believe that.

“I’m not the type of person that is going to say I’m going to retire in four years, I’m going to retire in six years. I’m going to retire when I feel I need to retire.”

The 50-year-old Summitt has been coaching at Tennessee for 29 years. She is the NCAA’s all-time winningest women’s coach, having earned a record 821 victories and six national titles. A member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, Summitt was named the Naismith Coach of the Century in 2000.

*

None of Connecticut’s heralded freshmen, Ann Strother, Barb Turner and Willnett Crockett, could stop talking about the excitement of being in the Final Four in their first seasons. But what’s the run been like for the Huskies’ most promising freshman, Nicole Wolff, who’s missed all but 10 games of the season with multiple stress fractures in her left foot?

“It’s still been really exciting, but at the same time, it’s frustrating not to be out there,” said Wolff, the McDonald’s High School Player of the Year in 2001-02. “But I’m confident I’ll get a chance to be right back here.”