Adams: LSU was able to finish what Lady Vols started

When Tennessee raced to a 21-2 lead in the first seven minutes Thursday night, LSU women’s basketball coach Van Chancellor might have yearned for his good old days as a courtside commentator.

As he put it, “TV, compared to coaching, is just like stealing. There’s no pressure in that job.”

The pressure mounted as quickly as UT’s lead at Thompson-Boling Arena.

How bad was it?

It was so bad that …

“I thought when the score was 21-2, I didn’t want to answer my cell phone,” said Chancellor, a 30-year head coach who spent last season as a full-time television commentator on women’s basketball. “I thought it might be the athletic director telling me I no longer had a job.”

It was so bad that …

“It might be like General Custer was that time with the Indians,” Chancellor said. “I thought it might be a massacre.”

But LSU star center Sylvia Fowles thought differently when the game was going all UT’s way.

“To tell you the truth, we actually kept our composure as a team,” Fowles said. “Nobody fussed at each other. Before we set foot in this gym, we knew it would be somewhat difficult.

“I kept thinking to myself, ‘We’re going to come back. Just keep your composure and let the game come to you in the second half.’ And that’s what we did.”

They did it with a vengeance. As dominant as UT was for seven minutes, LSU was just as dominant the rest of the game in a 78-62 victory.

Not only did the Lady Tigers overcome a 19-point deficit. They weathered a brilliant performance by UT All-American Candace Parker, who had 26 points, 10 rebounds, six assists and six steals.

LSU’s reward likely will be the SEC regular-season championship.

It’s not official yet. But it’s a mere formality unless LSU loses a key player to injury. The seventh-ranked Lady Tigers’ only remaining conference games are against Ole Miss, Kentucky and Arkansas at home and Mississippi State on the road.

LSU is 10-0 in SEC play, compared to UT’s 8-1 conference record. So the Lady Tigers have the lead and the head-to-head tiebreaker advantage.

The defeat continued a trend — but with a different twist at the end — for the Lady Vols, who have taken early leads before, then lost them before finishing with a winning flourish.

But LSU didn’t just overtake the Lady Vols. It finished what the Lady Vols started.

While UT failed to complement Parker, LSU supported Fowles in grand style. Aside from Fowles, who had 17 points and 14 rebounds, four other Lady Tigers scored in double figures. That included Allison Hightower, who came off the bench to score 10 points, including a pair of 3-pointers when LSU was struggling to gain momentum in the first half.

“I think she’s the best sixth player in the country,” Chancellor said. “When you have a sixth player, I don’t want someone to come in and be a defensive stopper. I don’t necessarily want a rebounder.

“I want instant offense. And Allison Hightower is instant offense.”

Quianna Chaney provided late offense. After missing 10 of her first 11 shots, Chaney hit four of her last five field-goal tries to finish with 14 points.

“Miss a lot of shots, then help us at the end — that’s one of the things she had not been doing in the past,” Chancellor said.

“Chaney’s thought process is this: ‘I’m gonna shoot when I’m hot;’ when I’m not hot, I’m gonna shoot till I get hot,’ ” Chancellor added.

He admittedly encourages that philosophy. Against the Lady Vols, his entire team played with a similarly resilient mindset after the wretched start.

The Lady Tigers were unshaken when they fell behind by 19 points. And they were unfazed when they couldn’t stop Parker early.

They responded by stopping everyone else.

Sports editor John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knews.com.

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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