Make way for a changing of the guard in women's basketball. And forwards and centers, too.

	LaToya Thomas and MSU lost their first home game this year.

A stellar senior class that captivated fans with the likes of Jackie Stiles, Tamika Catchings, Shea Ralph and Ruth Riley has moved on. A new wave of stars is taking their place.

Start with Connecticut's Sue Bird, Swin Cash and dynamic Diana Taurasi, who as a freshman played with a confidence beyond her years in the Huskies' run to the Final Four.

Mississippi State's LaToya Thomas, a second-team All-American as a sophomore, might have as much pure talent as anyone. Vanderbilt center Chantelle Anderson is back for her junior year after shooting 73 percent -- from the field, not the free throw line.

Center Angie Welle, a 66 percent shooter, should keep Iowa State in the national picture. Duke's Alana Beard was outstanding as a freshman last season. So was Shereka Wright at Purdue. Defending national champion Notre Dame has a stoic but deadly shooter in Alicia Ratay.

If you're looking for a big-time scorer in the Stiles mold, check out UAB's Deanna Jackson, a third-team All-American who averaged 25 points a game. And don't forget Oklahoma's Stacey Dales, a 2000 Olympian and the only returning first-team All-American.

"There are a lot of young players. There's going to be some new faces and new names," Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said. "That's good. Players come and go and they leave their mark, but new names surface.

"That speaks volumes for the women's game and the overall talent, which is far greater today than it was 10 years ago."

Here's another sign of progress: The Final Four is going to a dome. The 2002 national championship will be decided at the Alamodome in San Antonio. It will seat 29,619 and the games are sold out, ensuring the largest crowds ever for the NCAA Final Four -- and plenty of traffic for the Riverwalk.

Five months away, it's already stirring excitement in the Lone Star State.

"I would venture to guess there's not a Division I women's basketball player in the state of Texas who hasn't thought about how great that would be, to play in the Final Four in our state," Texas Tech coach Marsha Sharp said. "Our team is no different."

The first NCAA Final Four, at The Scope in Norfolk, Va., in 1982, drew 6,000 for the semifinals and 9,531 for the championship game. The largest Final Four crowd so far has been 23,291 at the Charlotte Coliseum in 1996.

"More progress has been made in the last 10 years in the women's game than all the other years combined," said Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, whose team played in its first Final Four in 1991.

So who's the best of the best? That's hard to pin down, Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly says.

"Jackie Stiles was such a great story. It was like a dang 'Hoosiers' movie," he said. "There's a lot of good players out there now, but I don't see anyone being that dominant.

"You've got no dominant for-sure team and no dominant for-sure player."

Which, of course, makes it all the more interesting when the NCAA Tournament rolls around.

Oklahoma returns four starters from a team that had a 17-game winning streak and reached the third round of the NCAA Tournament. Vanderbilt lost to Notre Dame by just eight points in the regional finals and has all of its top players back.

Beard is just one of several budding stars at Duke. Sharp has a talented team for her 20th season at Texas Tech and crafty Leon Barmore not only returns all five starters from a 31-5 team at Louisiana Tech, but gets 6-foot-2 Catrina Frierson back after she missed all of last season with a knee injury.

There won't be much drop-off at Connecticut or Tennessee, either.

Auriemma still has the players who took the Huskies to the Final Four after Ralph and Svetlana Abrosimova went out with injuries. Tennessee lost its big three of Catchings, Semeka Randall and Kristen Clement, but Summitt landed a top-notch recruiting class and can rely on veterans Kara Lawson and Michelle Snow, who dunked twice last season.

"I'll tell you right off, this team is not short on talent," Summitt said.

The Lady Vols are motivated, too. Their humbling loss to Xavier in the regional semifinals last year was their earliest NCAA Tournament exit in seven years.

Among the coaches in new jobs are two trying to pick up the pieces from sticky situations left by their predecessors, Bev Smith at Oregon and Cindy Anderson at St. Joseph's.

Smith, formerly the Canadian national coach, succeeds Jody Runge, who resigned amid accusations she had belittled players and assistants. A university report charged that Runge had pushed the program to the "brink of collapse."

Anderson follows Stephanie Gaitley, fired after being accused of retaliating against a former player who filed a sexual harassment complaint against her husband.