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Laura Hall
The votes are in and the five seniors on the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team have spoken. Not that their opinions actually count in the matter.
The seniors are making their third straight trip to the NCAA tournament. With that in mind, they were all asked to pick which of the eight first- and second-round sites they would like to visit, and which opponent they would most like to face in the first round.
In a close vote, the seniors — Alex Anderson, Laura Hall, Brooke Hand, Amy Mohr and Kristen Spann — have decided they want to play either Vanderbilt or Kentucky in West Lafayette, Ind. The Lady Mocs (29-3) will learn their fate Monday night when the brackets are announced.
“It’d be kind of fun to play Kentucky again,” Hall said. “My freshman year, we got waxed there (in the WNIT), and the year after that we lost to them again in the (NCAA) tournament. ... That would be one I’d like to have another shot at.”
The year before the seniors arrived on campus, the Lady Mocs lost to Vanderbilt in the second round of the 2004 tournament at McKenzie Arena.
“I came here to (see that game), and that was the first time I met Brooke,” Mohr said. “That would be cool, to kind of complete the circle.”
They probably won’t get to play Kentucky because the Wildcats (15-15) appear to be a long shot to receive an at-large bid. Vanderbilt (23-8), meanwhile, is ranked No. 20 and is projected as a No. 5 seed.
When asked her choice for a first-round opponent, Anderson appeared to have a team in mind but decided to abstain from voting, perhaps to avoid jinxing herself.
“I don’t want to say it,” the two-time Southern Conference player of the year said with a smile.
As for playing at Purdue’s Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, that’s doubtful since the Boilermakers will likely be an 11 or 12 seed like UTC and will get to play at home. The only reason several of the players picked Purdue was because it is the closest site to Chattanooga at 488 miles away, according to Google Maps.
“If it wasn’t about the most (fans) that could make it, I always thought it would be cool to go to Connecticut,” Hand said, referring to Bridgeport Arena. “When I think of Connecticut I think of Huskies, and I like it.”
The other six host sites are: The Pit in Albuquerque, N.M.; the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, La.; Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa; Maples Pavilion at Stanford; the Comcast Center in College Park, Md.; and the Ted Constant Convocation Center in Norfolk, Va.
There’s not much of a “wow” factor when it comes to the eight destinations — though Stanford’s campus is widely considered one of the most impressive in the country — but the Lady Mocs seniors have already seen their share of the country during their careers.
As sophomores they played in Chicago at Allstate Arena, where they lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Kentucky, 69-59. Last season, they traveled to Raleigh and fell in the opening round to Baylor, 68-55, in the RBC Center.
They visited Honolulu last season for the Paradise Classic, they played in Las Vegas as sophomores during the Lady Rebel Shootout, and as freshmen they participated in the Hilton Concord Thanksgiving Classic at St. Mary’s in Moraga, Calif.
The question for next year’s seniors is a moot one since McKenzie Arena is one of the 2009 tournament’s host sites. Should the Lady Mocs earn a spot in the field, they will be guaranteed a game on their home court. The last time that happened, UTC upset Rutgers 74-69, in 2004, for the only NCAA tournament win in program history.
John Frierson is in his fifth year at the Times Free Press and fifth year covering University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletics. The bulk of his time is spent covering Mocs football, but he also writes about women’s basketball and the big-picture issues and news involving the athletic department. A native of Athens, Ga., John grew up a few hundred yards from the University of Georgia campus. Instead of becoming a Bulldog he attended Ole ...
