Storrs — He first met Vivian Stringer when he was a student at Talladega College in Alabama. Tim Eatman attended a clinic in Nashville and heard Stringer, then the head women's basketball coach at Iowa, speak.

"My life was changed," Eatman said Thursday morning from Gampel Pavilion, expounding upon his relationship with Stringer. "I went right up to her afterward and told her, 'Hey, coach, I would love to work for you.' She looked at me and said, 'Have you finished college yet?' I said, 'No, ma'am.'

"She replied, 'That would be a start.'"

Stringer, the Hall of Fame coach now in her 48th season (24th at Rutgers), will not coach in the NCAA tournament due to illness, it was announced last week.

Stringer, who won her 1,000th career game earlier this year, was originally supposed to miss the end of the regular season and the Big Ten tournament but return for the NCAAs.

No. 7 Rutgers (22-9) meets No. 10 Buffalo (23-9) in a NCAA first-round game at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Gampel, with the winner to play either No. 2 UConn or No. 15 Towson University in the second round. In his fourth season as Stringer's assistant coach, Eatman will serve as the Scarlet Knights' head coach.

"We are just working hard to make sure she understands that we are proud of what she has done for us and we are trying to return the favor back to her and make her proud of us," Eatman said. "One of the things that coach has always taught us is that you deal with the moment and the moment is here for us right now for us to try and be as successful as possible."

Stringer, 71, announced her intention to return as Rutgers coach in the future. Also, senior forward Stasha Carey said Thursday that the team has spoken to Stringer and received words of encouragement, "so that made us feel a lot better."

"For me, she's just a really strong, powerful woman and it's hard not to be moved by her when she talks to you or when she says she has a plan for you," Rutgers sophomore guard Arella Guirantes said of being recruited by Stringer. "I know a lot of my teammates feel the same way and they feel as though she's a mother figure to them. ... As a player, you want your coach to have that love for the game just as much as you."

UConn coach Geno Auriemma missed games late in the season this year against Tulsa and Wichita State due to a stomach virus. He said that watching games on television was worse than in person because you have no control, then amended that (jokingly) to say, "It's the same (as being there). You can yell and they don't hear you."

But Auriemma had empathy for Stringer, his former colleague from the Big East, where the teams were rivals.

"To not be able to be at practice, to not be able to be with your team, especially in the NCAA tournament when it's the most important time of the year," Auriemma said, "that's got to be difficult on the coaches, the coaching staff taking her place, the players who are used to a certain way. It can't be easy."

v.fulkerson@theday.com