At Oral Roberts, it's all about faith

Oral Roberts, meet Job.

Injuries, illness and tragedy all took their toll on the Golden Eagles this season, but like good old Job, Oral Roberts University found a way to keep the faith and earn a spot in the women's NCAA tournament.

Their reward, aside from the Summit League tournament title, is a 16th seed and a first-round matchup against defending national champion Tennessee (30-2) on Sunday in West Lafayette, Ind. (TV: ESPN2, 9:30 p.m.)

If their road to the tournament is any indication, the Golden Eagles (19-13) are poised to handle just about anything that could come their way.

They've sure had plenty of practice.

"We've had personal tragedy. We've had injury. We've had sickness. We've had travel problems," Oral Roberts coach Jerry Finkbeiner said. "Everything hit us from all angles."

Before the season, Oral Roberts lost projected starting forward Carol Volpato and top reserve Lameka Oakes to season-ending injuries.

And that was just a prelude for a grueling two-week bout with the flu, which left only two players unaffected.

Coaches missed road trips, players missed practice and games, and Finkbeiner was forced to quarantine his players. On the road, the sickest players roomed with one another to keep the outbreak from spreading.

"The locker room, the bus, the airplane was not a pleasant place to be because of the sounds and the smells," Finkbeiner said. "We should have been quarantined. I've never had a whole team affected that way."

Says sophomore guard Janae Voelker: "I felt bad for people on airplanes with us."

Later, the entire team was affected by the tragic death of a player's family member. Add the lingering effects of off-season foot surgery on preseason conference player of the year Jenny Hardin (the 6-foot-2 post likely won't practice in advance of Sunday's game) and travel woes (including arriving in Kansas City for a game two hours before tip-off), and it's no wonder why the Golden Eagles went from preseason Summit League favorite to a No. 4 seed in the conference tournament.

Still, in the last two weeks, Oral Roberts came together and rallied to win the tournament and secure its second consecutive NCAA berth.

"Coach Fink has an amazing tournament record," Voelker said. "He's known for peaking his teams at the right moment. We were confident. It was just a matter of were the shots going to fall.

"As a team, I don't think we think we've reached our potential yet. We still think there's a lot to gain out of this season. We still think we have a lot of momentum."

They'll need it against Tennessee, which has won seven national titles and never failed to make the Sweet 16.

With that in mind on Tuesday, Finkbeiner showed his team film of Harvard's historic upset of Stanford in the 1998 women's tournament, the only time in men's or women's NCAA history a 16-seed upset a No. 1 seed.

"Tennessee is a big name in women's basketball," Voelker said. "A great opportunity. If you're going to go against the best, why not the best? It's an opportunity to show what ORU is all about, to take that to the national level. We're excited to be on a stage with Tennessee."

Only a few weeks ago, that looked like a long shot. But obstacles-be-darned, Oral Roberts managed to regain the form it expected from the beginning of the season.

"When you look at all those things, the pleasure of our year has been it's come full circle," Finkbeiner said. "It's literally been a full-circle, full-cycle roller-coaster ride. You can't understand the full dynamics of it unless you're in the circle of team.

"We landed on our feet, and now we're playing the Vols."

Drew Edwards may be reached at 865-342-6274.