Tennessee at Summitt After Scaling Georgia

For 5-year-old Tyler Summitt, this could get old before he becomes big enough to put a stop to it.

In the on-court celebration of Tennessee’s 83-65 victory over Georgia in the NCAA women’s basketball final Sunday night, the Volunteers’ big post players began tossing Tyler around like a beach ball.

He became the bouncing ball you followed, just as the Tennessee band struck up--what else?--”The Tennessee Waltz.”

His mother, Pat Summitt, hugged everyone in sight, and finally rebounded young Tyler out of the air, just as her front line players had rebounded the ball in the unexpectedly easy victory that gave Tennessee and Summitt their fourth championship, more than anyone else.

It was achieved before a Charlotte Coliseum sellout crowd of 23,291.

Almost perfection, Summitt called it.

“That’s as close to a perfect game as I’ve ever had, considering the things we wanted to do tonight,” she said.

Tennessee’s front line of 6-foot-4 Tiffani Johnson, 6-3 Abby Conklin, 6-2 Chamique Holdsclaw and 6-1 Pashen Thompson dominated the defensive backboard.

The night’s theme: When Georgia (28-5) missed, Tennessee (32-4) rebounded. When Tennessee missed, Tennessee rebounded.

Additionally, Tennessee senior guards Michelle Marciniak, the Final Four’s most outstanding player, and Latina Davis stopped Georgia guard Saudia Roundtree, the national player of the year.

“Our game plan for Saudia was no layups and no free throws . . . we wanted her to have all jump shots,” Summitt said.

Roundtree wasn’t a factor. She was three for 14 from the floor and made only two free throws.

As a result, the Bulldog offense depended on 6-2 All-American La’Keshia Frett, who had a game-high 25 points and 16 rebounds.

Roundtree, who was held scoreless in the second half, and Frett cried during the post-game news conference, heartbroken that they couldn’t give 17-year Georgia Coach Andy Landers his first national title. His is still the nation’s best women’s program without an NCAA championship.

Landers took Roundtree out with 1:07 left and the Tennessee bench and crowd already celebrating, urged on by Marciniak, standing on a chair and waving a towel.

It was a close game until Holdsclaw, a freshman, scored on a put-back of a Marciniak miss and added a free throw for a 17-14 lead at 13:58 of the first half.

After that, Georgia steadily fell further behind, enduring scoreless stretches of four and two minutes in the first half, then a five-minute drought after halftime, when Tennessee increased its lead from 61-52 to 68-52.

Afterward, Landers could only point to the obvious.

“They hammered us on the boards, how else can you say it?” he said.

Landers praised Conklin for her four-of-five three-point shooting.

“Conklin really hurt us,” he said. “In the first half, just when I thought we’d settled into the right defense, she drained two threes. After that, they got a couple of turnovers that they turned into scores.”

Said Summitt: “I told them [the Volunteers] in the locker room we were down to our last exam, and asked them if they were prepared to ace it. They all said yes.”

Senior guard Davis did most of the defensive work on Roundtree.

“Latina is the reason Saudia didn’t play well,” said Marciniak, who left Notre Dame three years ago and transferred to Tennessee.

“Saudia was shaken up, I could see that in her eyes and so could our whole team. When you see that in their point guard . . . well, we wanted to take advantage of it.”

Tennessee is 48-11 in the NCAA tournament since 1982, has been to the Final Four nine times and has won the title four times.

The start of the game was delayed for 15 minutes after the Tennessee mascot broke open a stuffed Bulldog (Georgia’s mascot) that he was drop-kicking around the floor. The stuffing material, Styrofoam chips, scattered everywhere and Tennessee was pulled off the court during warmups until the mess was cleaned up.

Ater which the Volunteers knocked the stuffing out of the real Bulldogs.