Philadelphia - Their fans have prepared for this, expected this, since last season's triumph deep in the heart of Texas. The whereabouts of the UConn women for the first week of April, 2011? Everyone knows it's Indy. Always did.

But would you be at all disheartened if I said I was … disheartened?

Not at the thought of another Final Four, of course. Mad props and bon mots to the UConn women, who got to their 12th Final Four on Tuesday night, doing so with, among other warts, a bench thinner than the cream cheese named after the city in which this was accomplished.

Nah. I'm disheartened that the opponent is Notre Dame and not Tennessee.

I wanted Tennessee.

I wanted Tennessee for the juiciness of it all. For the theater. And it would have been such great theater, too. Geno vs. Pat. Maya gets to play Tennessee. A week of rising, percolating anticipation. The rivalry reinvents itself.

Mostly, though, this would have been a chance for Pat Summitt to come clean. On the national stage. With the cameras rolling. Finally.

Summitt's implication - subtle as a jackhammer - that Auriemma cheated to get Maya Moore (among other allegations) has been more cryptic than specific. In the absence of her version of the truth, presumption and speculation have filled in the blanks. This would have been the chance to ask Summitt at the podium to explain herself.

And she would have been asked.

She would have been asked about her comments from earlier this season, alleging that Auriemma has compromised on recruiting ethics.

"I've never compromised at all, and I wouldn't. And if I did, they should fire me," she said.

And when the folks in Knoxville thought that might have been a poke at then-Tennessee men's coach Bruce Pearl, she told a radio station in Knoxville, "I didn't have Bruce Pearl on my mind. I probably had Connecticut on my mind. There's a reason we don't play them."

Summitt needs to answer for that. Publicly. On the game's biggest stage at the Final Four.

Auriemma deserves a chance at rebuttal. Call Auriemma what you want. But he is no cheater. Never has been, never will be. The UConn women's program is cleaner than a box of Ivory soap.

And now Summitt, because her team lost Monday night, gets to walk between the raindrops.

Not that the Women's Basketball Establishment Wing of the NCAA minds. They were already in Defcon 5 mode this week, figuring out ways to intercept any heresy. Media members were warned to ask questions only pertaining to the game at hand while the coaches and players sat at the podium.

Who knew Stalin took over the NCAA?

Perhaps some of you are turned off by the storyline, irritated with us muckrakers stirring up such a tired, old story. Free country. But how can you defend one of the game's Gatsbys calling another one a cheater with no recourse? No consequences? And if you think that wouldn't make great theater, great television, great fodder for conversation and a way to get women's basketball on page one, you'll be keeping your quiet little game on page three.

There is momentum for the women's game. Weekend television ratings revealed that UConn-Georgetown on Sunday did the same number as the NBA games Sunday on ESPN.

UConn-Tennessee would have been the most watched women's basketball game ever.

Jere Longman of the New York Times asked Auriemma after Tuesday's win over Duke how the "elephant in the room is that you don't get to play Tennessee."

Geno said: "What elephant? I don't wish anything on anybody. Were playing who we're supposed to be playing. I don't miss it at all."

And when asked if he's disappointed that Moore never gets a crack at the Lady Vols, he said, "If we were supposed to play them, we would play them. We had a chance last year to play them and we had a chance this year to play them (in the NCAA tournament). It didn't work out. The object of playing at Connecticut is to play against the best teams in the country. Maya has done that."

Tremendous shot.

And the last one he'll get.

By the weekend, it'll be all Notre Dame, all the time. By next week, the trophy won't be any smaller and the national championship no less significant.

But one day, Summitt will have to answer for calling Auriemma a cheater. One day.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.