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Tennessee isn't getting ahead of itself as it gears for another NCAA women's basketball tournament.

Despite being tabbed the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Regional, the one-game-at-a-time alarm sounded after the tournament bracket was unveiled Monday night and it echoed into Tuesday afternoon's practice.

The Lady Vols (30-2) are preparing for a first-round game against No. 16 Oral Roberts (19-13) at approximately 9:30 p.m. Sunday in West Lafayette, Ind. (TV: ESPN2).

No. 8 seed Utah and No. 9 Purdue play at 7. The winners meet Tuesday night for a trip to the regional semifinals in Oklahoma City.

The Lady Vols still were gathering game tape on their opening opponent. They had one in hand Monday night. A second tape was due Tuesday night, and they hoped to add a third before the weekend.

From what she's seen, UT coach Pat Summitt said the Golden Eagles remind her some of Vanderbilt. She also noticed that they're not against pushing game tempo.

"I'll be anxious to see if they want to run with us,'' she said.

The faster the pace, the better for the Lady Vols. Their preferred plan of attack was evident in a 92-61 victory over Florida to start the SEC tournament. The rout featured 38 points from close range, 30 fast-break points and 24 points off turnovers. And no UT starter played more than 28 minutes.

"They do a great job of making it feel like that everything is closing in on you,'' Florida coach Amanda Butler said. "And there's only so many timeouts in a game that you can call and try to break up some of that momentum."

The Golden Eagles want no part of a stampede like that and likely will play accordingly. The Lady Vols must advance several rounds into the tournament before they'll find a willing draft partner.

And they are fine with that mode of tournament travel. The Lady Vols are 7-2 when scoring fewer than 70 points. Five of those victories came against NCAA teams (LSU, Vanderbilt, Duke, West Virginia and Rutgers). One of the losses was in overtime, 73-69 at Stanford.

"In our perfect world, it's 'Let's go play with a higher tempo,' '' assistant coach Dean Lockwood said. "Let's run. We have great conditioned players who can get up and down the floor.

"But if you insist on grinding it out, we feel like, you know, at both ends of the floor we'll be able to function with that as well."

That said, UT still will try to create a perfect world for itself. The process begins before the Lady Vols lace up their basketball shoes and take a deep breath, That's when they get their minds racing.

"I think that mental preparation is really key when you want to run and do all that kind of stuff,'' center Nicky Anosike said. "If we can sit down and talk about our game plan and talk about how we want to run on people that's going to stay in our minds."

With that thought in mind, Lockwood has stockpiled some DVD clips of star forward Candace Parker running the floor during the SEC tournament like wide receiver Randy Moss going deep. As she watches herself whoosh across Lockwood's computer screen, he will say, "Wherever that came from, do it again."

"I think she had it in her mind, she locked in on it,'' Lockwood said, " 'I'm going to use this great ability I have and push every possession. I'm going to run the floor.' "

It's never too soon to start running either. For all of their meandering tendencies, the Lady Vols have consistently gone to the front this season. They trailed at halftime just twice this season and didn't trail at all before the break in 12 games.

Despite allowing 145 more points in the second half of games this season (1,027-882), the Lady Vols have led during the second half of every game and never trailed after halftime in 26 of them.

"If you can get a lead on people ... there's only so much they can do in order to play at a slower tempo,'' Lockwood said. "They have to shoot the ball."

The rest is a primarily a function of rebounding and defense. One way or another, get the basketball and go.

Notebook: Summitt said that she's inclined to keep senior Alberta Auguste in the starting lineup. . . . Assistant coach Nikki Caldwell said that she has not heard from any Memphis officials this week about the school's head coaching opening. Summitt thinks UCLA will be interested in Caldwell regarding its opening. . . . Summitt said the Lady Vols have installed a set play from the men's team and named it after Vols' coach Bruce Pearl, calling it "the Pearl play."

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.