That headline, which I wrote, could be talking about the last two Lady Vols games or ’rona finally sinking its fangs in me after I avoided the coronavirus for three years. I will start by thanking Betty Bean for filling in for me last week in this column space on short notice, but she’s a pro and handled it well. I spent two days on the couch with crushing fatigue and the rest of the week in a fog of fatigue. I will be happy to leave both behind.
The good news is after 10 days, I finally tested negative, so I will now venture outside of my house. That means I will be back on press row this Thursday evening (02/02/23) when Tennessee hosts Ole Miss in an important SEC match as far as standings at the top of the SEC.
Postseason basketball cognoscenti know a team wants a top four seed in the final conference standings for a better path to the championship game because of the built-in bye games. The other 10 teams in the SEC fight it out on a Wednesday and Thursday to reach the Friday quarterfinals, where the top four teams start the tourney.
Right now, South Carolina and LSU are at the top with 9-0 records in conference play. They play each other on Feb. 12 so something has to give there if it doesn’t happen before then in another game.
Jordan Walker, Tess Darby, Jordan Horston, Jillian Hollingshead and Jasmine Franklin at LSU.
(Kate Luffman/Tennessee Athletics)
After the last two games against UConn and LSU of hope and then despair and then hope again and ultimately despair for Lady Vol fans, I wish I could tell you that Thursday won’t tax your emotions too much.
But Tennessee is third in the SEC at 8-1, and, Ole Miss is in fourth place at 7-2, so Thursday’s game, while it’s just Feb. 2, can have seeding implications in March. Ole Miss also looked out for the count Sunday after being down 19 points in the fourth quarter against Arkansas but came back to win, 76-73, in overtime in Fayetteville. Even if Tennessee manages to build a lead Thursday against the Rebels, fans can’t take a breather.
Social media is taking the last two Lady Vols losses in its usually mature fashion … of course, not. It’s a fever pitch of anger, blame and demands for a pound of flesh from someone. So, what are the reasonable takeaways? Let’s go to Captain Obvious: Tennessee has to get better.
That means better execution and better decision-making by the players and coaching staff. Pat Summitt always used to say coaches are in charge in practice, players are in charge in games. It’s not an absolute, of course. Coaches can make lineup changes and call timeouts – Kellie Harper holds onto hers like a dog with a roasted marrow bone – but the players control what actually happens on the court.
Coach Kellie Harper (Kate Luffman/Tennessee Athletics)
It should be said that Harper did call a timeout early in the third quarter against LSU and waited about two turnovers too long to call one in the fourth quarter. With the women’s rule to advance the ball after a made basket in the final minute, having late timeouts can be a game saver. It allows a team to in-bound the ball near mid-court and the opponent can’t set up full-court pressure, but sometimes, like Elsa, you’ve got to let it go.
Harper, like Summitt, is stubborn. I told Harper last December that I never thought I would meet another person as stubborn as Summitt but now I have.
As far as the social media angst, I stay out of it. My timeline gets flooded with angry posts, and engaging it makes the situation worse. Trolls who won’t let up are blocked to go play in their own sandbox of rage.
I will let the season play out as always and will note: If Tennessee plays as a team on the same page, it can still beat anyone in the country. It’s up to Tennessee to define who it is in the final month of the regular season.
CANDACE UPDATE: My last column before ’rona waylaid me caught up with Candace Parker’s return to the campus and can be read here. The former Lady Vol casually dropped the news Sunday on Instagram that she was going to play for the Las Vegas Aces.
Candace Parker and her son, Airr.
Parker, who won a WNBA championship with Los Angeles and then another with her childhood hometown of Chicago, pondered retirement – she has played professionally since 2008, all but two of those years in Los Angeles, where she makes her permanent home – but decided otherwise. Parker signed a one-year contract with the Aces, the defending WNBA champions.
The move keeps Parker close to Los Angeles via a short flight and reunites her with Oak Ridge native Nikki Caldwell Fargas, a former Lady Vol player and coach who is now president of the Aces.
She also thought about her daughter, Lailaa, who has traipsed across the globe with her mother because of basketball. Parker was pregnant with Lailaa – though she didn’t know it yet – when she was finishing her first WNBA season in Los Angeles in 2008.
“I need to be there for my daughter, for my son, for my wife,” Parker wrote on Instagram. “I can’t be without them for parts of the season when Lailaa is in school and I won’t miss her volleyball games or school dances simply because of distance. Lailaa starts high school in August and I need to be there for her, just as she’s been there for me.”
Maria M. Cornelius, a writer/editor at Moxley Carmichael since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press.