Ames, Iowa ? They are conference rivals separated by 180 miles of rolling Tennessee countryside, one in Nashville, the other in Knoxville.

Vanderbilt and Tennessee have been playing each other since the late 1970s and the partisanship in the rivalry runs deep. Never, though, have they met in a setting like this nor with so much at stake.

The two longtime women’s basketball powers from the Southeastern Conference will square off in the middle of Iowa in the Midwest Regional final tonight. The winner goes to the Final Four.

“It has to be played somewhere, why not here?” Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said. “This has been the one regional that has been supported by the fans.”

This is the only regional in the NCAA Tournament where the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds have survived, and it was the bracket that generated the most controversy with those seeds.

Tennessee felt slighted in being seeded second after winning the SEC championship by three games over Vanderbilt, which won the conference tournament. The Vols also were upset about being placed in Vanderbilt’s region.

“I really felt in my head and my heart that Vanderbilt and Tennessee should not have been in the same region,” Summitt said. “But my job is to coach and the committee’s job is to place teams.”

The two teams split during the season, each winning at home in front of vocal, supportive crowds. Neither can count on that kind of support tonight at Iowa State’s Hilton Coliseum.

“I think the gym at the end will not make any difference,” Vanderbilt’s Zuzi Klimesova said. “The team that comes with the better plan and executes it better is the team that’s going to win.”

And for once, Vanderbilt won’t be engulfed in sea of Tennessee orange.

“I sort of look forward to this opportunity, because we have never played them in an environment like we’re going to play them tomorrow night,” Vanderbilt coach Jim Foster said.

“Whether it’s in Memphis last year, where there were 12,000 at the game and I think 10,000 were wearing orange, and obviously when we play them up there and 21,000 people are wearing orange. I expect to see a lot of red tomorrow night. And that ain’t orange.”