Winning Women Practice Versus Men

It's into hour three of a University of Connecticut women's basketball practice in Storrs, Conn. Coach Geno Auriemma is not happy. One of his 15 practice squad players, an unheralded sophomore, keeps hitting jump shots over Maya Moore, the three-time All-American senior. "How the hell does that happen?" Auriemma asks. "Show us exactly what happened," he demands. "How did he get a jumper?"

That's right, he. The top-ranked Connecticut team is among the two-thirds of Division I women's basketball programs that practice against male players, according to a 2007 National Collegiate Athletic Assn. survey. University of Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, the all-time winningest coach in college basketball history, has used men since being hired at the school in 1974. Duke, Michigan, and UCLA also play against male teams, as do about half of Women's National Basketball Assn. teams. Auriemma started using men shortly before his first UConn championship in 1995 when Greg Yeomans, who later walked onto the men's team, and some of his friends came to a practice. Auriemma liked what he saw, and since then he says men have been "one of the most important aspects of our program."