Three teams, one shot highlight year

 Three dominant teams set the tone for women's basketball in 2000. Then Michelle Snow added an exclamation point.

 Snow, a 6-foot-5 junior at Tennessee, became the third woman to dunk in a game when she threw down a two-handed jam in Maui on Nov. 25.

 Instantly, it became the highlight-reel shot of the year for women's hoops. The dunk also thrust Snow, one of Tennessee's lesser known players, into the national spotlight, an unforgettable play in the year of the Huskies, Comets and Olympians.

 Connecticut won the NCAA championship after losing just once during the season. Houston remained the only team to have won the WNBA championship, claiming its fourth title in four years, and the U.S. women's Olympic team went 8-0 to win the gold medal in Sydney.

 The Huskies beat Tennessee 71-52 in the national championship game in Philadelphia to give coach Geno Auriemma his second NCAA title. It capped an emotional weekend for Auriemma, who grew up in the Philadelphia area and was carried off the floor by his players after the game.

 "A lot of guys that were coaching when I was playing said I'd never be any good as a player. They were right," Auriemma said. "So I turned out to be the coach of a championship team.

 "It's kind of funny to come back and they are all in the stands and they are all happy for me, because they finally saw me win something."

 The championship topped off an impressive NCAA tournament run by the Huskies, who won their six postseason games by an average of 31 points. They finished 36-1, losing only to Tennessee by one point on a last-second shot.

 UConn had just two seniors, neither a starter. That prompted Auriemma to declare at the team's championship celebration, "We'll be back here next year with a third one. I promise you that."

 The Huskies show every sign of making good on that promise. They started the 2000-01 season with seven straight victories, none closer than 24 points.

 Connecticut's Shea Ralph and Svetlana Abrosimova were first-team All-Americans. The others were Tennessee's Tamika Catchings, Georgia's Kelly Miller and Notre Dame's Ruth Riley.

 Catchings was voted The Associated Press player of the year and Auriemma was the coach of the year, the third time he has received the award.

 Houston continued its dominance in the WNBA after its hold on the title seemed as if it might slip away.

 The Los Angeles Sparks, led by Olympian Lisa Leslie, won all three regular-season games with Houston en route to a league-best 28-4 record. But Houston swept the Sparks 2-0 in the Western Conference finals, then swept the New York Liberty in the best-of-three championship series behind Cynthia Cooper and Sheryl Swoopes.

 Houston also swept Sacramento in the first round of the playoffs.

 Cooper, who said she would retire after the season, was the championship series MVP for the fourth straight year. Swoopes, who later starred for the Olympic team, was the regular-season MVP.

 "When everyone counted us out, we hung in there and showed character," Cooper said.

 Swoopes, Leslie and LA's DeLisha Milton went right from the playoffs to the Olympic team. Some had questioned whether the team's 11 WNBA players would be able to keep their edge for another month after the summertime pro season, but that was never a factor.

 Coach Nell Fortner rotated players to keep everyone fresh and the United States won each of its eight games by double digits, something the men's team could not do.

 "As time goes by, it just becomes sweeter and sweeter," said Fortner, now the coach of the WNBA's Indiana Fever. "It feels a little better every day. I'm very, very proud of what that team accomplished and how they did it. Not just that we won, but how we won."

 The team saved its best for the end. The gold medal game was against Australia, which had been anticipating the moment since losing twice to the United States at the Atlanta Games in 1996.

 Led by 19-year-old sensation Lauren Jackson, the Australians were ready and the Aussie-dominated crowd was noisy. But the United States quickly took the Australians, and the crowd, out of the game and won 76-54.

 The game's most memorable moment came long after it had been decided. With five minutes to play, Jackson got her hand tangled in Leslie's braided hair extension and yanked it off.

 "She can have the hair," Leslie said. "I have the gold."

 Snow's dunk, the first in a women's game since 1994, was similar: a memorable play that had nothing to do with the game.

 Late in the first half of Tennessee's 111-62 victory over Illinois in the Maui Invitational, Snow stole the ball near the top of the key, dribbled untouched to the other end, leaped and jammed the ball through the basket, her bent legs dangling as she hung on the rim.

 "I don't know how I got there, but I made the steal," Snow said. "The other team just stopped, like they didn't know I had the ball. So I took off and said to myself, 'Line up your feet and go for it.' And I did."

 A photo capturing Snow at that moment appeared in newspapers nationwide. The year had a shot to remember.

 "I think the next thing that will be interesting to see is the drop step and dunk," said Fortner, who was there for Snow's dunk. "That takes a lot more strength, but I think that's probably the next step that will happen. It's going to be fun to watch it progress."