STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

More Women's Basketball

• Hornbuckle is on title run
• Baugh partcipates in offensive drills
• It's a pain for McMahan to watch

Share and Enjoy [?]

Get Reprints

Want to use this article? Click here for options!

Tennessee faces a week's worth of women's basketball that looks more like March Madness than February.

At least it's not the postseason in one important aspect.

"This is not a one-and-done situation,'' UT coach Pat Summitt said.

No, one way or another, the second-ranked Lady Vols (21-1) will complete the entire gauntlet, beginning with Monday night's game against No. 7 Rutgers (19-3) at Thompson-Boling Arena. (TV: ESPN2, 7 p.m.). What follows are key SEC games against No. 8 LSU at home on Thursday and at Vanderbilt next Sunday.

Summitt placed some of the blame for this imposing lineup on the conference office.

"The SEC made two of them,'' she said, laughing.

Still, she had a hand in squeezing the Scarlet Knights into the schedule to create an obstacle course worthy of a Marines boot camp.

"This is great preparation for the postseason, to have what we have and what we will be challenged with in the next three games,'' Summitt said. "We will learn a lot about our basketball team."

If only she knew how much of her team will be available for duty. The team was off Saturday, but the rehabilitation continued for such players as All-American Candace Parker (bruised left knee), reserve guard Alberta Auguste (left shoulder/biceps strain) and starting forward Angie Bjorklund (broken nose). All three are officially listed as day to day after suffering injuries in Thursday night's win at Mississippi State.

Jenny Moshak, the Lady Vols assistant athletic director for sports medicine, noted improvement in all three players Saturday.

Moshak said Parker had no swelling in her knee and good strength. She was taken off the crutches, except for any longer walks.

Auguste had full range of motion and was fluid in her movement. Although she still is wearing a sling in public and dealing with some pain, Auguste's condition was described as "markedly better" by Moshak.

As for Bjorklund, the swelling in her nose was down, which improved her breathing.

Given the possibility of a depleted lineup, Summitt has considered some strategies related to game tempo and usage of timeouts.

"I usually take most of them home with me,'' she said of the timeouts. "That obviously wouldn't be the case."

For now, Summitt isn't signing off on an alternate plan for Monday night and the week ahead. She will receive a medical update at this afternoon's practice and proceed accordingly.

"Without sitting around and driving myself crazy trying to think about all the what ifs, I'm just going to wait until Sunday afternoon,'' Summitt said. "I'll have a much better idea."

In the meantime, she hopes Tennessee will be able to line up like Tennessee and play like UT. The latter didn't happen against Mississippi State. The Lady Vols squandered a 13 point first-half lead and trailed by seven points at halftime before rallying for an 87-69 victory.

The performance underscored the Lady Vols' ongoing quest to sustain some sort of consistency. In this case, UT's reserves drew most of Summitt's wrath. Since some of them might be playing bigger roles Monday and for the week ahead, they'll be hearing from their teammates, but not in Summitt-like fashion.

"You kind of have to shy away from the yelling part,'' starting guard Alexis Hornbuckle said. "Talk to them, player to player. Make them understand we need them every time they're on the court. Every second, every minute, every possession counts. You can't take a possession off, just like I can't take a possession off."

Parker might be inclined to share what she perceives to be an example of team consistency, albeit a dubious one.

"I don't know whether it's good or not, but we always do things that we have to,'' she said. "Sometimes you can't turn it on like that, but I still think we have time to be consistent and do the things we need to do - defend and rebound."

She also might remind everyone about the week ahead, as if that's necessary.

"I think we become inspired when we play better competition and we play ranked teams,'' Parker said. "... We know the stretch of games we've got. All of us came here to play top-ranked teams and the schedule we do (play). We wouldn't change it. I'm really excited about this upcoming week."

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.