Tennessee never dropped out of my Top 25 poll this season, and I had the Orange Crush moving on to the Sweet 16 in my bracket (which I reluctantly fill out every year).
But now Tennessee is out of the tournament after the first round – a sentence I never thought I would type. Not even this season.
One of the things about being in the media and watching Tennessee for so long is that it’s given me the chance to see both sides of the program’s dominance very clearly. Meaning I’ve seen what it takes to keep a program at that level season after season and the joy that’s brought participants and followers. But I’ve also seen the toll – in terms of losses and disappointments – that Tennessee’s strength takes on other programs.
I’ve witnessed the professionalism and loyalty of people involved with every aspect of Tennessee women’s basketball. From head coach Pat Summitt down to the ushers at Thompson-Boling Arena, there is a right way for things to be done. Thus, that’s the only way they are done.
Regular press conferences and teleconferences are set up for the media. If an interview is scheduled at a certain time, it’s done at that time. Summitt has answered a million questions – some of them the dumbest queries that could possibly be asked – not because she “has” to, but because she believes it’s part of her responsibility.
This is a woman to whom nothing has ever been handed. She’s earned every bit of what she has. From the time she grew up toiling on her family’s farm to now, in 2009, when she likely won’t sleep very well the next few nights in her home on the Tennessee River.
I’ve heard other coaches talk with some envy about Summitt, and I always want to ask if they really want to live with the load she carries.
If they want to have to smile, shake hands, listen to strangers attentively and be “at their best” every time they step outside their homes, because that’s what Summitt has to do. If they want to live with the expectations of thousands of people who think national championships are just their right for being Tennessee fans. If they want to have a bulls-eye on their backs for every game, even in a season such as this where the pressure should have been off.
Or at least off a little. For pete’s sake, the program had just won back-to-back national titles – increasing that total to eight – but then lost all five starters. This was a team with six rookies and one redshirt freshman. A team that lost its only experienced post player in February. And it’s worth noting, also, that one of Tennessee’s longtime assistants, Nikki Caldwell, left the program to take over at UCLA.
Why is 22-11 a bad season in light of all of that?
The answer, of course, is because it’s Tennessee, and Summitt NEVER lets herself off the hook. In the many ways that she and UConn’s Geno Auriemma are very much alike (despite their enemy status) this is one that makes them so rare. Neither one ever says, “Oh, give us a break, we did pretty good! Let’s not expect the world every dang season!”
They don’t ever give themselves that escape hatch. They DO expect the world every season. And because they’ve been so good for so long, they have created two dynasties that provide great foils for the rest of the women’s college basketball world.
And Tennessee remains the biggest of all. How many times in Summitt’s 35 seasons has she taken her team to another school and spread the “gospel” of the game by bringing the excitement of a marquee program there? Who can count that high?
People may think I’ve ranked Tennessee too high or picked them to go too far. But realize that my expectations for the program are shaped by watching the way Summitt has navigated every potentially treacherous path she’s faced.
I’ve watched Tennessee get the best of most of its longtime rivals over and over, like poor old Vanderbilt. I’ve seen Tennessee continually smash the hopes of very good teams on the biggest stages, despite those teams having enough weapons to win. Think Virginia in the 1991 NCAA title game or Georgia in the 1996 national final, just to name two.
I’ve Tennessee win by dominating, and win by scrambling, and win with a superstar or two, and win with no stars at all. I’ve seen them win “impossible” games with foul shots or 3-pointers or buzzer-beating tip-ins or great defense. I’ve seen them keep most foes from doing the impossible things that Tennessee has done to them..
I think someday, women’s basketball really won’t have any juggernauts quite like Tennessee still is now (regardless of this season).
Tennessee and UConn likely always will be very good, mind you, just as programs such as North Carolina, Kansas and Duke are always (with brief exceptions) very good on the men’s side.
But there will simply be too much talent spread nationally across the women’s game for any program to do what Tennessee has done now for so many years in a row. The Tennessees and UConns of the future really will face the occasional first- or second-round NCAA loss and it will still be very surprising, but won’t seem like the world is ending.
That is part of the evolutionary growth of this sport, something Tennessee has contributed so much to that it can’t ever be overstated. Still, that “someday” is a ways off. Tennessee isn’t on the decline or losing ground in any kind of general sense.
It’s just this: Pat Summitt’s team had, by her standards, a very bad season. And it’s contributed to other teams achieving things they never have done before (or haven’t done for a long time.)
It may not be the kind of thing a disappointed Tennessee fan can really take ahold of for solace, at least not in the immediate sting of such a loss. But with time, you hope Tennessee and it fans can think of it this way: You truly have to be a giant to make such a loud noise when you fall.
I usually wait a few days after a loss to go online a read stories about it. But I knew I could trust you to keep things in perspecitive. I just can’t wait until next year!
As a longtime Tennessee fan, I am not very surprised that Ball State knocked the Vols out of the tournament last night. Aside from the 1000th win, it was a tough season overall. But I imagine many people out there don’t know the details of the Vols season, the injuries to key players, the youth of the remaining players, and the fact that Summitt is a genius for getting this inexperienced team into the tournament in the first place. I just want to thank Mechelle for presenting the big picture. Pat Summitt has given so much to the game and I just hate that people delight in any perceived failures on her part. However, as a fan, I know that Summitt will use this loss as motivation and I fully expect that the team will re-group and reclaim their competitiveness next season.
First, some credit and props where they’re due – Ball State won this game, every bit as much as Tennessee lost it. Hats off to the Cardinals!
Why that’s historic, at least for me, speaks to a couple of different points.
One – the last time Tennessee didn’t take something home, whether it was the SEC regular season, the SEC tourney, or a national title, was 1985. Twenty four years ago. That’s not consistency, that’s just insane. Every run ends, though, and this was the year. That simply goes to show that continuity and veteran leadership are huge for all teams, no matter who you are. You simply don’t lose your entire starting lineup to the WNBA and expect to be right back on top the next year. This year was always going to be a challenge for Tennessee.
That fact alone doesn’t make this result historic, though. What makes it historic is that there are now dozens of good basketball teams. Tennessee can’t just have a down year and keep mowing everyone over – because NCAA Women’s Basketball is Up. It’s just not true that Just Being Tennessee means an automatic pass to the Sweet 16. What’s so neat to see – even for a die-hard Lady Vols fan – and what this game’s result so clearly indicates, is that just being a name-brand program isn’t enough to keep you entrenched any more.
The level of play – across the sport – has been elevated so much since Tennessee started that run that just ended. Today? A 12-seed can beat you if you’re not totally on top of your game – it doesn’t matter who you are.
That’s a great place for women’s basketball to be.
I don’t want to see the Lady Vols steamroll some overmatched opponent. I want buzzer-beaters, intensity, and games that are going to be flat-out lost unless the team does a serious gut check. There have been flashes for years, but those days appear to be arriving now in a big way. In a sense, Tennessee’s much-discussed dropping of UConn from the regular season only serves to reinforce it – you can look a lot of places for a good game now.
And this year? During this year when Coach Summitt won her 1000th game… Sure, losing is a disappointment and a bitter pill to swallow, but I don’t know what better testimony to Pat Summitt I could seriously expect.
This year was simply about coaching – about taking a handful of very young women, who weren’t even born yet when this Lady Vols team started to become That Team, and getting them to challenge themselves to dig deep and find the best that they could be, all the while carrying the expectations of the nation on them that they would still somehow be That Team. They’ll come around, and next year the pressure’s off, in a way. The team can quit trying to carry around decades worth of legacy, and just go try to be itself. If I want to measure Pat Summitt’s success, it’s in leading these young women to challenge themselves to improve. We’re spoiled in Knoxville anyway. Most places are happy to hang a banner in the arena every once in a while, never mind every single year, year after year.
Here’s the women’s basketball, and to a bright future!
And as you mention, we need to remember that Pat Summitt has been training those very coaches that are going to be making those paths to future championships even more eventful. Caroline Peck, Nikki Caldwell, Kelly Harper, and on and on… The new generation of coaches, the Sherri Coales, the Charli Turner Thornes, the Brenda Freses where raised under the very large shadow of Summitt’s legacy. She set the standards.
I remember back to the early 80s when I was still in college. Tennessee had yet to win a championship, but everyone knew that the Vols were the dangerous team because they were coached by Olympian Pat Head Summitt. News filtered back about how, after a bad loss, Coach Summitt called a full practice immediately after the team got off the bus, around midnight. The reaction from the players around me? Sort of a mix of astonishment about what Summitt would do (plus a relief it wasn’t them), and also an understanding that this was a coach with standards higher than any other.
Now, at the top programs, arriving to classes on time, sitting in the front rows, expecting to win championships…this is starting to become the standard. It may have started at Tennessee, but it is finally spreading. That will be Pat’s greatest legacy. Beyond the orange and white banners, she will have done what she has been working at her entire career: make *all* of women’s basketball better.
Certainly as a UCONN fan, I can’t help but feel a little satisfaction that Tennesee lost to Ball State. But as a women’s basketball fan, I’m inspired by the performance of the Cardinals in their first round performance and hope that they will not only have the honor of “giant-killer”, but that there will be years of viewing pleasure to come from this program.
You are absolutely right that this season is not indicative of a permenant slump at Tennesee. UCONN has not experienced such a loss of talent in one year with so little in the pipeline for recruits as Coach Summitt has had to deal with this year.
But I do wonder if the “Summit” personality which was required to build the brand and in a sense, the whole women’s basketball industry, is what is needed for the next phase.
While I take my hat off to what Pat has accomplished in the past, I equally take my hat off to Kelly Packard who didn’t just coach a team to beat Tennesee in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Within one year, she took the raw materials that she was given, and built a team, winning their conference and this person’s respect.
What was her method? According to her own words in the after game interview, relationships. Ball State obviously has some truly excellent players in Portia Green and Audrey McDonald. The genius of Kelly Packard was getting her players to become friends with each other. Therefore they weren’t playing for the coach or for Ball State tradition. They were playing for each other.
Can Pat Summit do something like that with her young team? Kara Larsen commented after the game (not exactly in these words) that Pat was never one to use soft skills in managing her teams, at least not for very long. So time will tell. I have no doubt that Coach Pat will get Tennesee back to the big dance in the future.
But I think we are going to see more of Kelly Packard and other coaches who build their teams into a “band of brothers”. That’s what attracted me to watch women’s basketball in the first place. Which method of coaching will be dominating the game over the next 10 – 20 years? I know that I’ll be watching to find out.
Pat Summitt is one of the best coaches ever — maybe *the* best coach ever. Thanks for reminding us of that and more.
Pat Summitt will never make excuses, which is one reason why she’s won 1,000-plus games and been to something like 19 Final Fours. But winning 22 games with a team she basically had to assemble in the preseason and getting a 5 seed in the tournament (the RPI actually rated them as a 2 or 3) was still a heck of a job, especially considering the team was decimated of two of its experienced players during the season and a third was hobbled.
This wasn’t a bad team when it was at anything like full strength (not that it was bad when people were hurt). They were good enough to beat Stanford by 10 in December, after all.
What they had on the floor in the second half, Ball State should have beaten Tennessee. You compared this to Harvard beating Stanford 11 years ago in a 1-16 game. Heck, Tennessee was just as much a shadow of the team it was in December as Stanford was on the day they got beat by Harvard.
Pat will reload, and with her returning players having gained all this experience and dealing with adversity, she’ll probably be right back in the Final Four next season.
Nice perspective on a tough year for us LV fans. I always enjoy your take on things. I am not one of those fans who wants to throw the Baby Vols out with the bath water and I eagerly await next year’s surprises! Each season in WCBB is a new drama and watching it unfold – win or lose – is just too much fun.
Just as Pat and and her program have deserved their status and accolades, maybe…just *maybe*…we can say they
“deserve” this newest of benchmarks, as well. Losing a basketball game isn’t REAL “losing”, like being shot by a firing squad at dawn…it’s just another experience from which that group will harvest some learning. Pat will see to that. She has too much class and has accomplished too much to feel any real loss of dignity in this.
Personally, I am NOT a full-fledged Vols fan, but I have to give those gals a ton of credit for what they DID accomplish as freshmen. And life will go on…
I am a fan of Coach Summitt, not a Tenn fan. I don’t think this was historic as many people are trying to write and say. This was a young team, had some injuries (as ALL WBB teams have) and could not fight through it. But this is a crossroads of sorts for this program. Just look at the roster, where are the Juniors and Seniors? They LEFT! Coach Summitt knows that this a cyclical game, they lost two years of recruits. YES, Mayo Moore would have been the lastest savior, like Parker, but Parker simply masked a bigger issue for this program. The Ladies have choices, lots of choices and the team that she assembled got the benefit of the doubt because it was Coach Summitt. IMO.
being born under Rupp, raised by Hall, Sutton was my first date, and i matured with Ricky, and was loved by Tubby, Billy may be my first marriage but that is still in progress. on more than one occasion i have suggested that Pat be our new coach. She is one of the few active coaches in the world who understands UK mens basketball, and understands the part of the job not in the official job description. I have never been the person with the bulls eye birthmark, but i have nothing but love for Pat for bearing it with grace and style.
She has survived unflustered on the public stage and continued to this point with a level of strength seen in few people. She should be applauded. For all those who put the loss under the bright light for the 5 second sound byte – get over yourselves. Pat will be there tomorrow to kick your butt! For the true UT fans, tomorrow comes.. and good programs survive short term dips. Fulmer had his day in the sun, and some cloudy days at the end. This does not mean that i expect UT football to fall off the map.
Pat.. congrats on the past, i will see you next year. To everybody else, quit watching women’s basketball and start watching American Idol or Desperate Housewives if that is all you can handle.
Great stuff as always Mechelle.
As a UConn fan from back in the days when there were 200 to 300 people in the stands, I’ve never had anything but respect for TN and Pat.
You rightly give her credit for being bigger than just TN basketball. She is a living legend.
Although I must say that I wouldn’t want to be a player at TN this week, month or year ahead.
I couldn’t agree more with Alvin. I can’t wrap my head around why this is such a big deal. If you remove the name from the front of the jersey, a number 12 seed beat a number 5 seed. Anyone who watches any college basketball knows that happens all the time. Even when you consider that the 5 seed was Tennessee, it was still a very young team that had underperformed ALL season. Tennessee didn’t show us anything they hadn’t shown us all year – that they were not a team that could rise to the occasion. This is not the biggest upset of all time, nor is it the most intriguing story-line of the tournament thus far. It was the predictable end to Tennessee’s season. The sooner we appreciate that, the sooner we can get on about our business of appreciating the great basketball being played by other teams.
And a final observation: The media’s focus on Tennessee’s loss is indicative of everything that is wrong with women’s basketball coverage and marketing – there is too much focus on perennial powers and not enough attention paid to teams that are playing very good basketball this year. I was disappointed when ESPN rushed to interview Summitt before Ball State’s coach after the game. That doesn’t happen in other sports, no matter how notorious the coach.
Note from MV: To me, when a program that had never missed a Sweet 16 in 27 years, has been to 18 Final Fours and has won eight national championships loses to a program that had never previously played an NCAA tournament game …. yes, that is the most historic upset in the game. It reflects the end of an stunningly consistent juggernaut … or at least a one-year interruption in it. To suggest is this is just another 12-beats-5 upset is to ignore three decades of history, no matter how inconsistent this particular Tennessee team was.
But I also knew if I wrote this was the most historic upset- which I felt it was- there would be plenty of people who would disagree because they would not view this in historic terms. They’d just think it was a 12 beating a 5. It is the nature of writing anything that is opinion.
Thanks for this piece Mechelle. I’ve read it multiple times and it has helped get past a tough loss. I always think you really have good perspective on things. Glad that you are doing the blog, keep it up!