DAYTON, Ohio -- The Tennessee assistant coaches were smiling noticeably as they entered the University of Dayton Arena on Sunday. And the spring weather probably had nothing to do with it.

The blue skies and sunshine didn't compare to the view inside. It was practically all orange with a smattering of Marist red.

Not much more than a first down away from the Lady Vols' bench, the UT pep band played you know what. It was as though Rocky Top had been reestablished a few hundred miles up I-75.

How much sweeter could a Sweet 16 get?

Answer: Meet Marist.

The 13th-seeded Red Foxes have been the poster girls for an NCAA women's basketball tournament distinguished by improbable outcomes. Somehow, the small school from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., managed to upset Ohio State, the Big Ten regular-season champion, and an athletic Middle Tennessee State team that lost only three regular-season games.

It's a nice story that a Hollywood scriptwriter could have written all the way to the Final Four. But left to its own devices, Marist was overmatched from the outset as the Lady Vols breezed into the tournament's Elite Eight with a 65-46 victory that would have been even more decisive if they seemingly hadn't lost interest in the second half.

"Marist Believe," read the red signs in the small orange-buster's zone of the arena. The signs were outdated by the 9:50 mark of the first half when UT led by a laughable 22-5 count.

By then, the match-up was about as compelling as one of those No. 1 vs. No. 16 first-round games the Lady Vols waltz through every March.

You knew Marist was in trouble when Shannon Bobbitt, UT's 5-foot-2 point guard, grabbed a rebound beneath the basket and scored in the first few minutes. You knew Marist was in more trouble when its own tiny guards couldn't elude UT's 6-4 Nicky Anosike on the perimeter.

"They were constantly moving, constantly setting screens," Anosike said. "That got a little challenging."

But only "a little."

Anosike sensed another challenge after Marist scored on three consecutive layups to open the second half. When UT coach Pat Summitt called a timeout, Anosike took it from there.

"Let's pick it up," Anosike screamed at her teammates.

UT needed a screamer to hold its attention against an opponent that wasn't as athletic or strong as even the worst teams in the SEC.

Never mind UT's second-half malaise. It established its superiority with such authority in the first half, the last 20 minutes were an afterthought.

The Lady Vols also proved they don't have to play a Jim Foster-coached team to make their old rival look bad. Foster's Vanderbilt teams repeatedly came up short against the Lady Vols. And watching how Marist strained to compete against UT, you couldn't help but wonder how Foster's nationally ranked Buckeyes could have lost to the Red Foxes in the first round.

The Buckeyes didn't corner the market on tournament mishaps. Better teams like Stanford, Maryland and Duke also have fallen by the wayside.

But in a topsy-turvy tournament, the Lady Vols haven't wobbled. Their closet game was a 14-point victory over Pitt in the second round, and their average margin of victory is 24 points.

So let the rest of Basketball America embrace the underdogs. The Lady Vols prefer to eliminate them.

"We knew (Marist) was on a roll," Anosike said. "But it was time for us to stop it.

"That's our job. We stop people."