(16) Drake (14-18) vs. (1) Tennessee (28-3)
Game Info: 7:00 pm EDT Sun Mar 18, 2007
Dayton Region - Petersen Events Center (Pittsburgh, PA)
It's hard to believe it's been nine years since six-time champion Tennessee has won a national title.
The top-seeded Lady Vols will have plenty of challenges ahead of them if they want to end that drought, although Sunday's Dayton Regional first-round matchup against Drake at Pittsburgh isn't expected to be among them.
Tennessee (28-3) has its NCAA-record 18th top seed, but the road to its first championship since 1998 won't be an easy one. The Lady Vols could face a second-round matchup against eighth-seeded Pittsburgh in front of a partisan crowd, and defending national champion Maryland and Big Ten regular-season champion Ohio State are also lurking in the bracket.
"This region is very, very stacked, but am I surprised? Absolutely not," Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said. "I'd have been surprised if it hadn't been. There's a lot of great teams obviously in our bracket, and yet there's no easy bracket in women's basketball these days."
How far the Lady Vols go depends partly on the play of sophomore superstar Candace Parker, who is averaging a team-high 19.7 points this season. Parker, the SEC player of the year, was held to a season-low four points in Tennessee's 63-54 loss to LSU in the conference tournament semifinals on March 3.
"Let's face it," Summitt said. "She's obviously been there night in and night out. She just didn't have the type of game we hoped she'd have and didn't seem to be able to get herself out of that."
The loss ended Tennessee's second 11-game winning streak of the season and caused Summitt to hold difficult practices in preparation for the tournament.
The coach emphasized that the Lady Vols need to play faster in order to advance. They have never failed to reach the round of 16.
"Our team understands that it's going to be important for us to establish our tempo," Summitt said. "We are a team that likes to press and run, and that's not going to change and dictate our tempo. I think that we will prepare for it and look to play our style of basketball."
Drake (14-18), which is one of two teams in the field with a losing record, isn't expected to pose a threat Sunday. The Bulldogs entered the Missouri Valley Conference tournament with 10 wins as the No. 8 seed, but won four games in four days with just eight healthy players.
"We've all heard about what it takes to overcome obstacles, and how through great adversity comes triumph, and it's all true. We believe that the greater the difficulty the more glorious the triumph," Drake coach Amy Stephens said. "We're living proof that it's not how many times you get knocked down, it's how many times you get back up."
The Bulldogs lost preseason MVC player of the year Jill Martin after five games due to a back injury, and also lost guards Jordann Plummer and Lauren Dybing, and forward Brandy Dahir through the course of the season. They dropped 12 of 13 in one stretch.
Drake is making its first tournament appearance since 2002.
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