Lady Vols a hot ticket in snowbound Spokane

SPOKANE, Wash. - Although Mother Nature is putting up a good fight, Tennessee versus Gonzaga holds top billing in this town tonight.

That's the opinion of Courtney Vandersloot. The Gonzaga women's basketball point guard was speaking on behalf of her teammates as well about an 8 o'clock tipoff at McCarthey Athletic Center.

"We're honored to have Tennessee here,'' she said. "We're excited to play them."

The locals expressed a similar sentiment this fall. The game has been sold out since Oct. 27.

In the meantime, winter has intervened, dominating everything from local newspaper headlines to daily conversation.

At least six more inches of snow fell by midday on Monday, pushing the season total past four feet. Local government officials declared a state of emergency during the weekend in order to streamline the bidding process for private contractors. Spokane County has been spending $70,000 per day on snow removal.

Gonzaga coach Kelly Graves sounded like he was reading from the chamber of commerce playbook in promoting the game.

"Spokanites, we're used to that,'' he said. "Hopefully it won't keep them home."

The Lady Vols have been soldiering through the snow. They've joked about putting 5-foot-2 freshman point guard Briana Bass on a leash, lest she get lost in a snowdrift.

"This is crazy,'' said Tennessee guard Angie Bjorklund, who is from Spokane. "I've never seen this much snow."

Ultimately, the biggest concern for No. 8 Tennessee (9-2) isn't winter's wrath but rather the Bulldogs' bite.

"They did something we couldn't do,'' said UT coach Pat Summitt, referring to Gonzaga's 69-62 victory over then-No. 15 Virginia on Nov. 30 at a tournament in Milwaukee.

The game occurred 13 days after the Cavaliers scored an 83-82 victory over the Lady Vols in Knoxville.

The Bulldogs pulled off the Virginia upset without Vandersloot, who was sidelined by an ankle injury suffered during the previous day's game against Utah.

"I think it gives us a lot of confidence,'' Vandersloot said. "At the same time, we knew when we went into that game that we were able to beat them. We weren't going into that game just to play. We were going in to win.

"We're having the confidence right now that we can compete with these top-level teams."

The basketball standards are high for the Bulldogs. Former Gonzaga men's basketball legend John Stockton attends their games. Since he still uses the school's weight room, he literally rubs elbows with the players, too.

Then there's the current Gonzaga men's team, which has raised the mid-major bar for everyone - the women's team included.

"We see that our guys were in the top five,'' Bulldogs forward Heather Bowman said. "They're the same school as us, the same mid-major, the same city - everything. We realize we can do that, too."

The Lady Vols don't have to take on the entire city, just the Gonzaga women's team. And they will have a full complement of players for just the fourth game this season.

Freshman forward Glory Johnson, who suffered a thigh contusion against Stanford on Dec. 21, looks better. Guard Cait McMahan, who had been resting her surgically repaired right knee since Dec. 15, is back and wearing a new knee brace. Summitt thinks that McMahan could play up to 10 minutes.

Bjorklund doesn't think that she will be adversely affected by her homecoming game. A knee injury suffered by her sister, Gonzaga guard Jami Schaeffer, has sidelined Schaeffer and diminished the family storyline.

"Playing in this type of environment is going to have me hyped,'' Bjorklund said. "At the same time, it's another game."

Under the circumstances, UT senior forward Alex Fuller said that the Lady Vols must have strength in numbers.

"I think we've learned,'' she said, "that we need each other."