Lady Vols one and done for first time

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Pat Summitt wondered when her young Tennessee team would finally get through its growing pains and finally figure it out.

Ball State gave her the emphatic answer: maybe next year.

The Cardinals stunned the two-time defending national champions 71-55 in the opening round of the NCAA tournament Sunday night, snapping one of the more remarkable streaks in college basketball history.

The Lady Volunteers (22-11) had never lost in the first two rounds of the tournament, going 42-0 through the years. It’s a run the program has used as a launching pad to eight national championships.

No. 9 will have to wait.

Tennessee became the first defending champ to lose its opening game in the women’s tourney. Old Dominion won the title in 1985 and failed to make the tournament the following year.

The Lady Vols were never in danger of missing the NCAAs even after an uneven regular season, though the selection committee dropped them all the way to a fifth-seed, lowest in 28 tournament appearances.

Summitt, college basketball’s all-time winningest coach, hoped for a fresh start in the NCAAs. She made the team watch a documentary on Tennessee’s 1997 national championship team, a club that lost 10 games during the regular season before finally figuring it out in March.

“I thought we were tentative, maybe uptight,” Summitt said. “But you have to give credit where credit is due and that’s to the Ball State basketball team. They had a lot more toughness. They beat us to loose balls. They made shots.”

The 12th-seeded Cardinals (26-8) will play Iowa State in the second round on Tuesday.

Porchia Green led Ball State with 23 points, Audrey McDonald added 18 and the Mid-American Conference champions dominated the second half to capture the biggest win in school history.

Shekinna Stricklen had 17 points for Tennessee. The Lady Vols shot just 35 percent.

“Their guards did an awesome job,” Tennessee’s Angie Bjorklund, who scored 14 points, said. “We need to get down and defend no matter what and we didn’t do that today.”