Lady Vols Are Having a Jolly Good Time

This is about Kellie Jolly, the Tennessee point guard, who could be directing her team’s drive to a 39-0 season by Sunday night.

But first, this setup:

If Tennessee defeats Arkansas on Friday, then beats the winner of the Louisiana Tech-North Carolina State game on Sunday to complete a perfect season, it will be seen as a coronation as much as a national championship.

It will be merely the start, all those people in orange sweaters will tell you, of something really big.

Tennessee has won the last two national championships, but Coach Pat Summit’s Fab Four--her stellar freshman group--had nothing to do with those two.

And what a group it is.

There’s guard Semeka Randall, with the powerful dribble-drives. There’s Teresa Geter, who seems always to be the one when Tennessee needs a big putback or a blocked shot.

There’s Kristen Clement, she of the no-look pass, and there’s leaper Tamika Catchings, with the sweetest pull-up jump shot this side of . . . well, Chamique Holdsclaw, her teammate.

Holdsclaw, a junior, is possibly the best to play the women’s game.

All of which brings us to Jolly, a junior.

She doesn’t seem to fit, somehow.

Shouldn’t Tennessee have a point guard modeled after, say, Jennifer Azzi or Teresa Edwards? Big and strong, with sprint speed and killer drives? It’s as if Jolly arrived at the wrong arena, found a Tennessee uniform and sneaked into the Tennessee huddle during a time out.

On a team of gazelles, she’s almost a plodder by comparison, seemingly overmatched.

But watch her for a few minutes. . . .

See her fashion fastbreak baskets with unerring passes, watch her take in everything and anticipate what happens on the court.

Then you’ll know why Summitt says of her: “She’s our heartbeat. She’s the key, to everything we do.”

And why Holdsclaw, the team’s scoring leader at 23 points per game, says: “She knows my game inside and out, where I’m going to be, when I want the ball . . . everything.”

Summitt and Jolly’s teammates are forever imploring Jolly to shoot during games--she was a 49% three-point shooter in high school--instead of passing for layups.

“I know Pat wants me to shoot more,” she said., “I’m just so focused on watching other people get open when I have the ball.”

Tennessee assistant coach Al Brown said Jolly blends great point guard skills with the perfect personality for a team of at times overeager 18-year-olds.

“She brings a calm to our team, a sense of stability,” he said.

“These are very young players, and they really respond well to Kellie bringing a certain calm to everything. And she’s a great defensive guard too.”

Many point to last year’s national championship as Jolly’s signature game. She had a title-game record 11 assists in a 68-59 victory over Old Dominion.

“She was great defensively in that game,” Brown said.

“We used her as an interceptor and a help defender, and she also clogged up the middle well.”

Jolly has 140 assists to only to 58 turnovers, a stat commonly used to measure point guards. In the women’s game, three-to-one is considered excellent.

Jolly has reduced basketball to simple geometry, of planes and angles. She’s a math major, of course.

So she not only knows Holdsclaw’s game “inside and out,” she knows everyone else’s.

“I have to know where everyone is supposed to be at all times,” she told the Tennessean.

“I think almost everyone in the country knows about our individual players and what their strengths are. But as the point guard I have to be more specific. I have to know exactly what their strengths and weaknesses are in any situation--where they would prefer to have the ball, when they’d prefer to have it.”

Asked to talk about a special destiny for this team, she deferred.

“I think all the players believe we have the potential to be a great team,” she said.

”. . . We haven’t done anything really important yet. All we’re thinking about is winning two more games. Then we can talk about how great we are, or how great we’ll be next year.”

Jolly wants to coach. She already talks like one.

She was asked how she’d coach a team to play this Tennessee team, now two wins from 39-0.

“I’d make sure my team’s confidence level was high, that my players understood anything can happen,” she said.

“Usually, that’s not a problem. Almost every team we play plays its best basketball against us. We’re the ones everyone wants to knock off. Look how North Carolina played against us.

North Carolina, in the Mideast Regional final Monday, had a 61-49 lead with 7:34 to play and lost, 76-70.

“If it’s at Tennessee, then I want my team poised, ready to handle the crowd.”

And she’d want her team to play the way Tennessee did Monday, when Holdsclaw had one of her worst shooting games, eight for 26, yet still found a way to put her team over the top--13 for 14 from the free-throw line.

“All season, that jump shot of her’s dropped,” Jolly said.

“Monday it didn’t. So we knew we needed a major effort on offensive rebounds, to get second shots. And we needed steals for some easy baskets, and we did that too. That’s part of being a mature team, handling tough situations.”

Speaking of tough situations, it was years before Jolly’s “little” brother, Brent, could handle his--getting hammered by his sister in backyard one-on-one games.

That’s changed now. Brent is a 6-5 junior at his sister’s old high school, White County High in Sparta, Tenn. He’s a point guard, recently named most valuable player of the state high school tournament, and a big-time college prospect. Yes, there were fights.

“I had to referee,” said Ken Jolly, the players’ father.

“These are two very competitive people. Kellie’s four years older, so she beat him all the time for a few years. But after Brent got tall enough where he could block Kellie’s shot, that changed.

“But I think he was about 14 before he beat her.”

Women’s Final Four

SEMIFINALS

Friday--Louisiana Tech (30-3) vs. North Carolina St. (25-6), 4 p.m.; Arkansas (22-10) vs. Tennessee (37-0), 30 minutes after first game.

CHAMPIONSHIP

Sunday--Semifinal winners, 5:30 p.m.