Take Kerry Howland's word for it. Shannon Bobbitt has a way with words.

Howland is the assistant director of the Thornton Center. She works with the Tennessee women's basketball team on their academics. One day this summer, she walked up on Bobbitt, one of the new Lady Vols, while she was talking on her cell phone with her father.

Bobbitt interrupted the call by saying, "Dad, I have go get my study on, Kerry's here."

Sounds like a nice mix of business and pleasure, reflective of Bobbitt's generally upbeat personality. Howland still chuckles at the memory.

The Lady Vols will hope for a similar blend with Bobbitt the basketball player. The 5-foot-2 junior college transfer, who is from upper Manhattan, is a prime candidate to be UT's starting point guard this season.

She's part of an ambitious overhaul of the position that includes another first-year player in 5-4 freshman Cait McMahan.

Bobbitt describes being at Tennessee as a "meant thing." She's come up with a cute way to sum up the unlikely set of circumstances that brought her here from Trinity Valley (Texas) Community College.

If former Lady Vol point guard Sa'de Wiley-Gatewood hadn't decided to transfer to Maryland ...

If Ed Grezinsky, Bobbitt's former high school coach, hadn't been working Tennessee's summer camps and hadn't mentioned his former star over breakfast with Lady Vols assistant Dean Lockwood ...

If Tennessee hadn't decided to sign junior college players for the first time in 29 years ...

Maybe it was a meant thing.

What happens from this point forward, though, will be less a product of good fortune and more the result of real virtues.

Whimsy aside, Bobbitt is demonstrating a seriousness to suit the occasion. Howland tells another Bobbitt story that speaks to her demeanor.

Howland and Lady Vols assistant Nikki Caldwell both gushed with delight when Bobbitt received a perfect score on her first test during summer school. Bobbitt didn't exactly bask in their joy. Her reaction was more like: What, you didn't think I could get a 100?

"It wasn't that I was surprised, I was elated,'' Howland said. "She thought I was overreacting."

Howland believes that, more than anything, Bobbitt means business.

"From day one, she's wanted to know exactly what she's needed to graduate in two years,'' said Howland of the psychology major. "She asks a lot of questions. She's not going to take any course unless she knows exactly where it fits."

There are indications that she will take a similar approach to basketball. She's already survived the initial shock of preseason conditioning, although UT coach Pat Summitt said, "She was probably ready to get off that (stationary) bike and head to New York."

Maybe so, but Bobbitt also said that she's ready to begin watching videotape with Summitt, the sooner the better. That won't happen until October and the official start of practice.

In the meantime, Bobbitt will continue offering preseason previews of herself. So far, this much is clear: The basket looks clearer to her now that she's wearing contact lenses.

"She said the goal was blurry when she was on the perimeter,'' Summitt said. "I guess she was used to shooting at a blurry goal."

Two other Bobbitt attributes also are apparent -- she is very quick and she is not very tall. She will be the smallest Lady Vol since 5-2 Lesia Cecil played four games in 1985-86.

Yeah, yeah Bobbitt might say to the latter observation. It has followed her like a second shadow throughout her career.

"You're going to have someone talking about you,'' Bobbitt said. "If you don't, you have to worry."

Lockwood, who watched Bobbitt weave through Trinity football players during a practice at her junior college, thinks that her stature has served to shape her personality.

"There's this dimension to Shannon where she's always had to prove herself; she feels she has to prove herself,'' Lockwood said.

Grezinsky has plenty to say, all of which serves to build up Bobbitt's skills and diminish any concerns about her size.

With her in charge, Murry Bergtraum High in New York City was 60-1 in two seasons, winning city and state championships and a USA Today national championship.

"(With Shannon), we never had to worry about a press breaker,'' Grezinsky said. "She goes through a crack in the wall."

At Trinity, a school with five juco national championships, she broke the school's 22-year record for career assists. Last season she was named the State Farm/WBCA national junior college player of the year after averaging 16.4 points per game and amassing 211 assists and 91 steals for a 30-2 team.

"(People) maybe looked at me and said, 'she went to a juco, she's probably not going anywhere,' '' Bobbitt said. "Those are the ignorant people."

Now that she's at Tennessee, there's a lot more people in Bobbitt's world. Or at least they are trying to be. As she noted, "The phone rings more now that I'm here."

Won't be long before she excuses herself. When the season's here Bobbitt will have to go get her game on.