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College basketball
March 22, 2003
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Four straight home victories will put Tennessee in the Final Four.
The top-seeded Vols open the NCAA Tournament today against No.16 seed Alabama State at Thompson-Boling Arena, right on their campus.
Win that, and the Vols play for a partisan crowd again. The team's following two games in the Mideast Region would also be in Knoxville, meaning they'd never have to leave the comfort of home until heading to Atlanta for the national semifinals.
"It doesn't get any more exciting than this," Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said. "Our team started thinking about this last spring" after losing to national champion Connecticut at the 2002 Final Four.
UConn -- the No.1 seed in East -- begins defending its title Sunday, also at home, facing Boston University. It will be the Huskies' first game since their 70-game winning streak ended with a loss to Villanova in the Big East tournament final.
The top seed in the Midwest, Duke, also plays its first-round game Sunday, against Georgia State. LSU, No.1 in the West, plays Southwest Texas State today at Eugene, Ore.
Subregion hosts Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, Old Dominion, Purdue and Stanford also play today, as the 64-team field begins the whittling process.
Tennessee (28-4), which lost to LSU in the Southeastern Conference tournament final, has six national titles, the last in 1998.
And it will certainly be daunting for the Vols' foes in the first four rounds. They went 12-0 this season at home, where they have won 16 straight overall.
The homecourt advantage is more pronounced in the NCAAs, where Tennessee is 40-0 at Knoxville. It has won its first- and second-round games there by an average of nearly 30 points.
Other top teams playing host to region finals: No.3-seed Stanford in the West and No.6 New Mexico in the Midwest. The East Region, however, has Dayton, which isn't in the tournament, as its host.
Summitt, for one, thinks the sport would be better off if the NCAA made sure such important games weren't played on homecourts.
"I don't know of a coach in this country in women's basketball that would not be in favor of neutral sites. I am," she said. "I have been for a long time. How long will it take? Hopefully, we'll be there in a couple of years."
But Alabama State (20-10) isn't complaining about today's site. The Hornets are just thrilled to be making their first tournament appearance after winning the SWAC championship.
"We are overjoyed," coach Freda Freeman-Jackson said. "Playing Tennessee is just icing on the cake. Pat Summitt is a legend, and we are glad to be in Knoxville."
Senior Shameka Jackson, the SWAC player of the year, is excited about playing before a national TV audience.
"Just the experience is a great opportunity for us and the university," Jackson said. "For me personally, it's a chance to showcase my talents as well as for our team to showcase what we can do."
The Vols have had plenty of time to work on some problems exposed during the SEC tournament, where they struggled.
"The tapes from those games were not fun to look at," Summitt said. "We started slow in all three of those games. Our emphasis has been on making open shots. Our defense in our last game was very poor."
Sophomore forward Shyra Ely will start in place of center Ashley Robinson, in a move designed to add some energy to the lineup.