University of Tennessee Athletics
TENNESSEE LEFT NO DOUBT IN THEIR DEMOLITION OF OLE MISS
March 28, 2007 | Women's Basketball
March 28, 2007
By Jeff Lippman
CSTV.com
DAYTON, Ohio - Everybody has heard the saying, "got beat like they stole something."
That pretty much sums up the night for Mississippi. From the opening tip, which Candace Parker simply deflected into the hands of her teammate, to the point guard Shannon Bobbitt nailing two quick 3-pointers to take a 6-0 lead, this game was never close.
It was like the Marist game all over again. Only worse. Tennessee played this game like a team that could smell a National Championship just around the corner. And that is how they played. Like National Champions.
Ole Miss could not match the success they found against Maryland and Oklahoma because Tennessee knew exactly how to take the Rebels out of their game. They had a game plan and they executed to perfection.
"They came out with a championship mindset from the beginning and had the will to win," said Ole Miss senior leader and All-Region performer Armintie Price. "They were very aggressive and we were passive. Our trapping wasn't working and we slipped up and became passive which is not normal for us. Tennessee just came out and attacked us."
Very much like the song that says, "anything you can do, I can do better," so was Tennessee just better, in every aspect of the game, than Ole Miss tonight.
"The little train just couldn't get up the mountain and the big train kept motoring up," an emotional Carol Ross said. "It just seemed like everything we did, they did it better. They always had an answer. And we just didn't quite have it today."
One major glaring problem for the Rebels today was the inability to find scoring anyplace but from their leader Price.
The senior--if she doesn't garner first team All-American honors the system is a joke--had another monster night for her team. Early on, Tennessee took an 18-8 lead, it was Price who scored all eight points for Ole Miss.
The SEC's Defensive Player of the Year carried her team, scoring 30 points on 9-of-15 shooting. Ashley Awkward, a senior and Price's best friend, finished with 14 points and the next closest Rebel had just five.
That sort of team output will not get the job done against a team the likes of Tennessee. And it was the Lady Vols' Candace Parker who stole this show.
"She's a great player," Price said of her opponent. "There are not many players who can stop her."
That might be an understatement for a player who finished the night with 24 points, 14 rebounds, five blocked shots and three steals. And that was in just 25 minutes of action, as with the Vols leading big with about 10 minutes to play, Pat Summitt took her star out for good to a standing ovation from the crowd.
This marks the end of a phenomenal run for Mississippi. The defense they exhibited in their two previous contests is something not many teams could accomplish, and for that they should be proud.
They finish their season 24-11, a record that might look out of place compared to the other teams that have made it this far. But make no mistake, and Tennessee will corroborate, Ole Miss belonged in this Elite Eight.
The final score of 98-62, the largest margin of victory for a regional final game in NCAA history, doesn't do the team from Oxford justice.
Tennessee also used solid games from forward Sidney Spencer--22 points--and Bobbitt--14 points on 3-for-3 from long range--to beat up on the Rebels.
They managed to do what Oklahoma and the Terps could not. Take the Rebels out of their comfort zone. Create a little calm in their world of chaos. And when Ole Miss was forced to switch to man-to-man coverage, instead of their vaunted zone, Tennessee knew they had them on the ropes.
The Lady Vols, now 32-3 on the year, will be making their 17th trip to the Final Four when they invade Cleveland next weekend, the first time since 2005 when Parker was an injured freshman and didn't play.
"This will be my first Final Four because my freshman year I wasn't able to play," reiterated Parker, named the Dayton Regional's Most Valuable Player, "so I just wanted to come out and do what I could for my team and whether it was energy on the defensive end or the offensive end, that was my goal tonight."
When Parker and her Lady Vols take the floor in Cleveland, there will be one certainty, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The best player in the arena, by far, will be Candace Parker. And that is an advantage that just might carry Tennessee to its seventh National Championship.
