Fierce Schedule Reaps Rewards For Tennessee

That was one nasty stretch of games that Tennessee coach Pat Summitt put her team through in December and early January, and the Vols had a rough go of it.

Lately, though, they’ve started to realize the benefits of those games.

The eighth-ranked Vols headed into the weekend with an eight-game winning streak and a 21-7 record - their 21st straight season with 20 or more victories. Things didn’t look nearly as promising in early January, when Tennessee was 10-6.

“At the time we were going through that, we were wondering if we were going to see the end of the tunnel, so to speak,” Summitt said. “It was tough for us. We faced a lot of adversity and played the best people in the country.”

Indeed they did. From Dec. 8 through Jan. 7, Tennessee played eight games - seven against nationally ranked teams and five of those on the road.

Tennessee went 3-5 during that time, beating No. 9 Texas, No. 14 Texas Tech and St. Joseph’s and losing to No. 1 Connecticut, No. 2 Old Dominion, No. 3 Stanford, No. 5 Georgia and No. 20 Arkansas.

When the Vols finally lost again Saturday, it was a five-point decision on the road at LSU.

“Now we are seeing the rewards of playing a schedule like that,” Summitt said. “Top quality competition will exploit your weaknesses and that certainly got our attention coming back into the gym.

“I think those losses focused us, and we felt a sense of urgency individually and collectively to improve our game.”

Since that stretch, point guard Kellie Jolly has made a courageous return from a torn knee ligament suffered last October. In her first 12 games back, Jolly averaged 8.3 points and 3.6 assists, with a high of 18 points against Mississippi State.

But just as she was rounding into shape, the player who had replaced her, Laurie Milligan, tore cartilage in her right knee. Milligan, who started the first 21 games, had athroscopic surgery Feb. 13.

“We’ve had some adversity there,” Summitt said. “But we’ve still been able to make plays from the backcourt, and our frontcourt has stepped up and really given us some good balance.”

Welcome back

Though she helped Stanford win the NCAA volleyball championship only two months ago, Kristin Folkl wasn’t sure what kind of reception she’d get when she rejoined the Cardinal basketball team.

She needn’t have worried.

Folkl came back last Monday after coach Tara VanDerveer put out the help-wanted sign because her roster was being depleted by injuries. The 6-foot-2 forward, who hadn’t been in a basketball game since the 1995 Final Four, played for the first time against Washington State on Thursday night and received a standing ovation when she went into the game.

“I was just grateful that people hadn’t forgotten about me,” said Folkl, who scored two points and grabbed six rebounds in 15 minutes as No. 3 Stanford won 82-45. “It was a little awkward being out there again, but my teammates made it easy for me.”

Folkl averaged 9.5 points and 5.5 rebounds as a freshman after leading Stanford to the 1994 NCAA volleyball title. She sat out last season to play for the U.S. national volleyball team and was the first alternate for the Olympic team.

VanDerveer summoned Folkl after a succession of injuries that included Heather Owen’s broken finger and Naomi Mulitauaopele’s bum knee.

First lady

ESPN’s promotional spot featuring Joan Jett was such a hit last season that the network is doing something similar this year, this time with the First Lady of Soul.

Aretha Franklin sings “Hi-Heel Sneakers” in the spot, which promotes ESPN’s coverage of the NCAA Tournament. The song plays over close-up shots of game action.

Last year’s spot featured Jett singing a hard-rock rendition of “Love is All Around,” the theme from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” It was so well-received that Jett cut a full single of the song.

ESPN ran a second spot last year with gospel star Dorothy Norwood singing “Brickhouse.” The second spot this season has Angela McCluskey, lead singer for The Wild Colonials, doing a rock version of “Miss America.”

Fill ‘er up

Illinois will fill Assembly Hall in Champaign for its Big Ten showdown with Purdue today and set a league attendance record in the process.

The last of the 16,050 tickets were sold Thursday. The record for a Big Ten game is 15,500, for Ohio State at Iowa on Jan. 31, 1988.

The game was moved to Assembly Hall when officials saw the possibility of drawing a big crowd because of the 17th-ranked Illini’s success this season. The Illinois women usually play in Huff Hall, which seats 4,500. The team’s largest crowd there this season was 4,050 for Indiana on Jan. 19.

Coeur d’Alene’s Corissa Yasen starts for Purdue.