She will be key to tomorrow's game, just like she was last night.
that girl doesn't get much credit, but she's a real old-school warrior. She's from a real, real poor family with a bunch of siblings and a mom who went to college when she was in her 40s.
Great work ethic, great, great kid.
Both the New York kids (Bobbitt and Anosike) are essential to this team. Glue players.
I would take issue with the contention that Parker didn't do much in the second half -- she ended up with a double-double and really came on strong down the stretch.
It was ugly, but it was a W, as PHS say. And it was a team W.

Tennessee has a long, storied tradition in women's athletics. It's easy for the culture to embrace cute little gymnasts and svelte divers and sexy tennis players, but for some reason, Tennesseans have (with the exception of a few Neanderthals who seem to live run their pieholes on talk radio) always honored big, sweaty women who strive to excel. The longest-serving school superintendent in Knox County history, Mildred Doyle, was an outstanding fastpitch softball and basketball player in her day.

Blount County's high school girls basketball teams were legendary, and the old Nashville Business College produced players like Nera White and Doris Rodgers (of Porter High School in Blount County) who overcame the limitations of playing five-on-five, half-court basketball, and could probably have competed with today's athletes.

And Wilma Rudolph of the Tennessee State Tiger Belles is one of the greatest athletes ever, anywhere. Period.

Add to that the folks at UT making the astonishingly brilliant choice to hire a 22-year-old grad student named Pat Head to coach thewomen's basketball team, and you've got the stuff of a TV movie. A lot of feminists have a problem with the term "Lady" Vols, but I would submit that Pat Summitt has done more for women -- she's got alums who are doctors, lawyers, teachers, Olympians, TV commentators, coaches -- than anybody I can think of. She was part of a historic lawsuit in the 70s that forced the TSSAA to allow girls to play fullcourt basketball. She gave me a quote a few years back when W's people were about to dismantle Title IX that would've peeled paint (but alas, the story was killed by a Metro Pulse publisher who just didn't relish the notion of having Pat Summitt going after W in his paper. Pity).

Today's girls are elevating their games -- getting bigger and stronger, just like their male counterparts, although in basketball, the game probably mirrors the mens' game 20 years ago.

More important than middle school basketball are the AAU and club teams that pretty much play year-round. They are not without problems, however, and you're seeing 15-year-old girls pushed to the breaking point by ambitious stage-parents, suffering torn ACLs, chronic tendenitis and other joint problems that didn't used to be seen until much later in life.

There's a downside to everything, I guess.

But the bottom line is, I am a huge, huge fan of Pat Summitt, and if she ever listens to those people who have been trying to talk her into running for public office, I'll be delighted. This Tennessean is no empty suit.