You could see it on the Lady Vols' faces as Duke began to run away with the game in Durham on Sunday. Down 25 points with less than five minutes remaining, Tennessee looked shell-shocked, almost in disbelief with every glance at the scoreboard. Everything in its play, on its bench, in its posture echoed the same sentiment:
We don't lose like this. We're TENNESSEE!
For any other team in the nation, a number one ranking would be credential enough to reasonably expect a victory in every matchup. For Tennessee, it's about far more than a No. 1 ranking. There's a certain expectation of Big Orange, a reputation and history of success that makes Tennessee the team to beat and the team to be.
Tennessee coach Pat Summitt is arguably responsible for this prominence on the women's basketball scene, and she doesn't shy away from the pressure of being Tennessee. She has passed that mentality on to her players. Beyond the average athlete's responsibility to win for her school, her team, her coach, or herself, Tennessee players inherit a legacy to be defended, and their ability to handle the extra pressure often determines whether they sink or swim.
Both Duke and Tennessee knew their game was about more than the final score. Duke coach Gail Goestenkors talked about Tennessee's tradition and admitted readily that the Blue Devils are still in the process of creating a tradition of Duke women's basketball. The Tennessee players, meanwhile, expressed their frustration at letting not only their fans, but their reputation down.
"Tennessee is about heart and we didn't show it," Lady Vol redshirt freshman Candace Parker said. "Coach has been harping on us about defense and how we have been living on the edge. We know that when we go back to Knoxville, that is going to be our main focus. We have so many weapons both on the offensive end and the defensive end. We just didn't bring it tonight."
Agreement came from teammate Sidney Spencer.
"[Duke] came out and beat us in everything," Spencer said. "They executed well, won all the hustle plays, outrebounded us, they did everything that usually Tennessee is about."
Only Tennessee and perhaps UConn can get away with referencing fundamentally sound basketball as some feature of their programs and their programs alone. And it only works in women's basketball - the sport is so young and the recruiting base still in development that the concentration of power remains with a handful of teams at the top of the sport. Each season another team nudges its way into the Final Four or, in the case of Baylor, all the way to a national title, and becomes another milepost on the road to the sort of parity found in the men's game.
To regain the Tennessee "swagger" that guard Alexis Hornbuckle said Duke usurped in their big Monday matchup, the Vols have returned to Knoxville to patch the holes in their team that the Blue Devils so harshly exposed. Even with a Tennessee-sized target on their backs, the Lady Vols had avoided a loss all season, but it took a team like Duke that was having comparable success to ignore the orange jerseys and dare to blow them out.
It's unlikely the Vols will face the same sort of onslaught on Thursday at Kentucky. Sure, the Wildcats will get an inspirational boost from Tennessee's first loss, but the Vols will have the same source of inspiration. Great teams are always most dangerous after a tough loss.
In 2005-2006, Tennessee is still the greatest women's program of all-time. An unmatched six National Championships and a head coach with 900 career wins has that title locked up for some time. Even with the loss to Duke, they'll stay somewhere in the top five programs in the nation, and they are still likely Final Four favorites.
The Lady Vols could conceivably run the table - No. 4 LSU is their biggest roadblock, and they get to host the Lady Tigers in Knoxville - especially after Duke highlighted their own weaknesses for them. Don't expect Tennessee to get burned in the same place twice - Summitt and the players she is raising will be sure of that. After all, they're Tennessee.
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