GREENSBORO - They were supposed to be getting ready for practice Saturday afternoon, but the Connecticut women's basketball players could not tear themselves away from the television. Like Girl Scouts at a campfire, they sat huddled around the set in their designated locker room at Greensboro Coliseum, aglow from the show being put on by Louisville, one of their Big East rivals.

The Cardinals, a No. 4 seed, held a double-digit lead against No. 1 seed North Carolina. If Louisville could hang on, it would be considered a huge upset, but the Connecticut women could not say they were surprised. Not after escaping with a six-point victory against Louisville on March 11 in the Big East tournament championship game.

The Big East, which a decade ago was considered one team deep in talent, placed eight teams in the NCAA Tournament and started the weekend with five in the round of 16, one more than the conference record set in 2003. It is a significant achievement that is worth relishing even as the Big East's top two programs, No. 1 Connecticut and No. 2 Rutgers, continued on their collision course. They both won Sunday and will face each other Tuesday in the regional final.

The Huskies have been the standard-bearer for Big East women's basketball since before Notre Dame, a conference member in women's basketball since 1995 and one of the five teams that advanced out of the first week of this tournament, was a gleam in the conference's eye.

In the 1988-89 season, Geno Auriemma's fourth as the coach, Connecticut won the conference regular-season and tournament titles, as it did this year. The Huskies were rewarded by the NCAA Tournament selection committee with a No. 8 seeding.

Now the Big East is deep.

The game between Louisville and North Carolina was winding down as the Rutgers women filed into their locker room, one door down from Connecticut's, to get ready for practice. They formed a semicircle around a plasma TV and cheered when the Cardinals' Candyce Bingham made a 3-pointer to bring Louisville to 76-74 with 29 seconds left.

North Carolina scored the game's final points on free throws to prevail, 78-74. The Cardinals had fallen, but they had buoyed their Big East sisters with their effort.

"It would have been nice if they had won," said Brittany Ray, a sophomore guard for the Scarlet Knights. "But they put up a good fight. It was just a great game to watch. I'm proud of them."