Young Tennessee Lady Vols lift Summitt to new hights

KNOXVILLE — Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt left it up to her players to prepare for this milestone game.

They were up to the challenge.

The Lady Vols used a dominating performance to overpower Georgia 73-43 on Thursday and give Summitt her 1,000th career victory before an announced crowd of 16,058 at Thompson-Boling Arena.

“They could have felt a lot of pressure, but I told them the only thing I wanted them to do was focus on another SEC victory,” said Summitt, who tasked her players with planning the scouting report for the Bulldogs during practice earlier this week after defensive breakdowns marred UT’s loss to Oklahoma on Monday.

It worked. Tennessee (17-5, 6-2) built a commanding second-half lead to ensure Summitt earned the historic victory on the court that bears her name.

Following the win, freshman guard Alicia Manning and senior forward Alex Fuller doused the Hall of Fame coach in a Gatorade bucket full of confetti as she did a television interview.

“Wow,” said Summitt, addressing the crowd as her voice wavered with emotion. “This may be a little hard for me.”

Summitt signed a contract extension earlier this week that will run through 2014. She will earn $1.4 million for 2008-09 and receive a $200,000 bonus for the milestone victory.

Despite the hype surrounding the game, UT players said they had simple objectives.

“We’re mostly excited that we played a 40-minute game,” said Fuller, who was a Lady Vol when Summitt got her 900th win in 2006. “We had so many people telling us that we haven’t played a 40-minute game. We finally played together the entire game, instead of half.”

Freshman Glory Johnson had a game-high 20 points for the Lady Vols. Fuller added 13, followed by 12 from redshirt freshman Kelley Cain.

Tennessee outscored the Lady Bulldogs 42-20 in the paint.

Georgia guard Christy Marshall led her team with 16 points and eight rebounds. Ashley Houts, a former Dade County standout, added 11 points.

The Lady Bulldogs (15-8, 5-3) gave up 18 turnovers, leading to 17 points for UT. They led by five early on but could never regain an offensive rhythm.

But Georgia coach Andy Landers didn’t attribute those breakdowns to the atmosphere surrounding Summitt’s big win.

“I don’t think the crowd bothered our team,” Landers said. “This is your world. The thing you don’t understand is people in Athens don’t care if there’s 1,000 or 200 (wins). We haven’t got caught up in it.”

Still, Landers, who has coached in the conference for 30 seasons, could appreciate the historic significance of the victory.

“You just don’t see the bar go that high and stay that high very often in anything,” he said. “Think about it for a minute. They have been able to do that for 35 years. I mean, holy cow.”

The Lady Vols went on a 13-0 run during a six-minute stretch midway through the first half to build a 20-12 lead.

Fuller scored 11 of the team’s first 13 points to start the game, including the first seven.

Manning had to be helped off the court by training staff 20 seconds into the game.