Next week the UConn women's basketball team will be in Tampa, Florida playing for the program's 10th national championship, 20 years since the program's first was won at the Target Center in Minneapolis.

<p>Twenty years ago I was there in the Twin Cities as the beat photographer covering the team for my second season. I had started in the '93-'94 season that ended in the regional finals of the NCAA tournament against eventual national champion North Carolina.</p><p>In 1995, the women's tourney was still largely untelevised, with CBS holding the broadcast rights to both the men's and women's tourneys. Only the women's Final Four was on TV. The games were played on back-to-back days, the national semi-finals during the day on Saturday, the 1st, with the finals in the afternoon the next day, April 2nd.</p><p>The Huskies had dispatched Stanford in their semi-final on Saturday leading the the big match-up with national powerhouse Tennessee for the title.</p>

<p>UConn had defeated Tennessee in a nationally televised game on ESPN back on January 16th to take the top spot in the polls and create a long-standing rivalry.</p><p>I remember that trip like it was yesterday. The Target Center was the largest venue I had ever worked in, much larger than the Hartford Civic Center, (now the XL Center). In time, my coverage of the UConn women would take me to much larger, but for someone only two years into his career at The Day this was a pretty big deal.</p><p>This was still in the film era. The advent of digital photography was looming. I had already experienced using a digital camera, but at that point in time The Day did not own one, and none was in use in the arena either.</p>

<p>My film would have to be processed at the Associated Press bureau across downtown from the arena. If the games had been played later in the day, closer to print deadlines, the AP would have brought equipment to the arena to process the film on site, but since all the games were in early to late afternoon, they drove the film to their offices. After the games I would go down to the bureau and edit my film and the AP would then transmit the digital files scanned from those negatives back to The Day.</p><p>After both UConn and Tennessee handled their semi-final opponents with relative ease on Saturday, the stage was set for the big showdown.</p>

<p>The consensus of the commentators on TV, and the press corps at the arena, was that Tennessee had a decided edge over UConn, with a deeper history of competition at this level and the legendary head coach Pat Summitt in charge.</p><p>By the time halftime came, the pundits and press were all thinking they were right. UConn trailed by six with both All-Americans Jennifer Rizzotti and Rebecca Lobo carrying three fouls.</p>

<p>I was probably just being a "fan" when I turned to AP photographer Elise Amendola, who had made the trip from Boston to cover the game, and suggested that Geno Auriemma and the Huskies had Tennessee right where they wanted them.</p>

<p>But in the end, I turned out to have been right. UConn whittled away at the Lady Vol lead despite Kara Wolters foul trouble adding to the challenge.</p><p>Lobo went on a scoring run, Rizzotti made a steal leading to a layup, (a photo of which went on the cover of Sports Illustrated), and then took a rebound that went coast to coast around Tennessee star Michelle Marciniak to give the Huskies the lead they would hold the rest of the way to their 70-64 win.</p>

<p>I captured the moment as the buzzer sounded and the players raced around the court as if they didn't quite know what to do. My lens found Lobo alone in the middle of the court with her arms raised in a moment of what looked like reverent celebration.</p>

<p>One of the last frames I made, after the nets had been cut down, was of coach Auriemma being carried off the floor by his players. Tradition gives the head coach the last cut at the nets to remove them from the hoop and as Auriemma turned to descend the ladder his team was gathered at the base, not allowing him down until they had him on their shoulders. I may never forgive a couple of TV reporters for sticking their microphones into my shot, but even with them there, it was one of the greatest moments from a great season.</p>

<p>Twenty years later the national titles have become almost commonplace at UConn, but that first one will certainly always hold a special place in my memory.</p>