Vols refuse to buckle late
LSU's dreams are dashed yet again
TAMPA - Every spring over the last five years, the good folks of Louisiana dutifully have made the pilgrimage. The first trip was the shortest - down the road to New Orleans. There were subsequent stops in Indianapolis, Boston, and Cleveland along with this year's to Florida, made obligatory by LSU's big win last Monday over North Carolina.
The folks dress in purple and gold, arrive in high spirits - and leave crushed and disappointed. Their favorite daughters manage to get to the Final Four - and then lose in the Final Four, almost as if by design. There have been close losses (by 2 points in 2004 to Tennessee) and blowout losses (by 24 points to Rutgers in 2007) but none of the aforementioned setbacks hurt as much as last night's devastating 47-46 loss to Tennessee.
It didn't matter that the Tigers were battling a familiar foe whom they already had beaten this season. Or that they had the SEC Player of the Year in Sylvia Fowles and a senior-laden lineup starved for one - ONE! - Final Four victory. Sooner or later, they had to figure, the law of averages would be on their side.
Nope. When the bright lights of the Final Four shine on them, there's an invariable wilting. And so it was again in the St. Pete Times Forum, with the purple and gold clan looking on with equal parts resignation and horror. There can be coaching changes, player changes, and, in the end, nothing changes.
Candace Parker and friends sent the Tigers back to Baton Rouge, this time with a dramatic victory, made possible by an Alexis Hornbuckle putback with seven-10ths of a second remaining. It was Hornbuckle's only basket of the game. On the previous Tennessee possession, Hornbuckle had tossed up an airball and then fouled LSU's best free throw shooter, Erica White, with 7.1 seconds left and the Lady Vols clinging to a 1-point lead.
White, in a change from the previous 39-plus minutes, swished 'em both. LSU can look back on this one and rue its brutal free throw shooting, 7 of 19, which was magnified by the closeness of the game. But White's two freebies gave the Tigers the lead. They were seven ticks from the championship game.
"I was confident of our chances," White said. "But we failed to make a play at the end."
She got that right. They failed to swarm Parker, who was allowed to dribble the length of the court. Parker (13 points, 15 rebounds, 3 blocks) clearly was not herself, her sore left shoulder limiting her on offense to short jump hooks and layups. "I think she's spent," said coach Pat Summitt. When the LSU defense collapsed on her, Parker found a wide open Nicky Anosike, who somehow missed a wide-open layup. But Hornbuckle was there to clean it up.
"I'm not going to give up on myself or my team," Hornbuckle said. "I crashed the boards. I didn't want to pull it down. I just wanted to tip it back in."
Parker said she wanted the ball on that last possession. "I just wanted to create. A shot. A pass. Whatever it was. We work on that situation a lot in practice," she said.
Said LSU coach Van Chancellor, "It's a tough way to lose a basketball game. Up 1, they have to go the full length of the court, and then to see what these kids have gone through the last four years."
While Parker struggled on offense - she was 6 of 27 from the field - she had plenty of company, most noticeably, the gifted Fowles of LSU, who had 24 points, 20 rebounds, and 5 blocks while going wire-to-wire. But Fowles was 10 of 24 from the field, missed more than a few layups, and was 4 of 11 from the line. She had a cramp after the game.
The victory improved Tennessee's record to 35-2. The Lady Vols will be making their 13th appearance in an NCAA title game. Summitt has seven national championships on her résumé.
Tennessee led, 22-18, at the end of an ugly first half, as the teams combined to shoot 18 of 61 from the field. The Lady Vols scored 3 points in the first 7 1/2 minutes and never trailed in that stretch. The combined 40 first-half points was the third-lowest in Final Four history.
It was close throughout most of the second half, as each team had a pair of 8-0 runs, and it remained close right until the final play. And, in the end, it was an all-too-familiar finish for the Tigers. Next year's Final Four is in St. Louis. 