Cavs snag a win on Rocky Top

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — For Virginia coach Debbie Ryan, Tennessee’s home venue of Thompson-Boling Arena has been a house of horrors.
Monday night, Ryan’s Cavaliers staged an 83-82 win coup over the defending national champions on their own court.
Monica Wright scored 35 points for Virginia (2-0), and Britnee Millner hit the decisive free throw with 6.4 seconds remaining.
“It ranks way up there,” Ryan said. “It’s something that will go down as one of the better games but for Monica, the way she led is the most important thing. She didn’t tell people what to do — she empowered them.”
Defeating the defending national champions on their home court should have a seismic effect on the national polls, and a positive one for the 15th-ranked Cavs.
“For our team this is definitely a confidence builder,” Millner said. “We are a top-ranking team.”
Wright’s final points came on a fadeaway jumper that tied the game at 82-all with 39 seconds remaining. The sixth-ranked Lady Vols (1-1) went to freshman Shekinna Stricklen for a baseline drive, but she missed and Millner came out of a scrum under the basket with the ball. Stricklen bumped Millner for her fifth foul, sending the sophomore to the line for the decisive free throw.
Millner hit the front end of the double bonus. Tennessee senior Alex Fuller corralled the rebound, but a precious 4.3 seconds ticked off before the Lady Vols called timeout. With 2.1 seconds remaining and three-quarters of the court to traverse, it wasn’t enough time to set up a play. Tennessee never got a shot off, and the final horn sparked a wild celebration at center court by the invading Cavaliers.
“Everyone was just so ecstatic,” Wright said. “We definitely feel like it’s part of history.
“This place is definitely legendary.”
And, for Ryan, a place where bad
memories were made before tonight.
“My memories about being in this building and being in the locker room we’re in tonight are not very good,” Ryan said. “We were in the exact same locker room in 1990, my first Final Four, and I was very nervous and didn’t know how to act.”
Virginia lost that game to Stanford, and fared no better in the three subsequent trips to Rocky Top.
“Every other time I’ve come here, it was usually just a complete drubbing,” said Ryan, whose 2002-03 squad ended its season here with a 30-point loss to UT in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
No drubbing this time. Instead, Virginia handed Tennessee just its 19th loss since the Lady Vols began playing at Thompson-Boling in 1987.
“I thought we played a team that was mentally and physically a lot tougher than us and that’s very disappointing,” Tennessee coach Pat Summitt said. “There’s not many times in my career I can say that, thank goodness.”
Virginia led early, but the advantage evaporated as part of a 21-3 onslaught by Tennessee in the first half. The Lady Vols started the run with 12 unanswered points, while the Cavs committed turnovers on six straight possessions. In spite of that momentum swing, Virginia trailed by a reasonable 43-35 margin at halftime.
“Really when I got in the locker room they were the ones that kind of talked,” Ryan said.
Paulisha Kellum and Lyndra Littles, the two players out of the lineup due to injury and academic reasons respectively, did most of the talking.
“By the time I got in here, they understood,” Ryan said.
Wright scored seven of Virginia’s first nine points in the second half, and the Cavs quickly made it a one-possession ballgame.
Neither team led by more than five points the rest of the way.
Aisha Mohammed added 19 points and a team-high seven rebounds for Virginia. Whitny Edwards scored 13, 11 in the second half.
Glory Johnson and Briana Bass, two of seven freshmen on the UT roster, scored 13 apiece to lead five Lady Vols in double digits. Johnson also got whistled for a technical foul with 3:38 left when she got tied up with Edwards going for a loose ball.
“That better not happen again,” Summitt said of the technical.
Tennessee was without two starters—Angie Bjorklund and Vicki Baugh, the lone returnees from the rotation for last season’s national championship squad.