Two days of craziness -- Madness, if you will -- have left the college basketball world searching for sure things.
Seeds matter little and leads matter less as winter becomes spring, but know this: The University of Tennessee Lady Vols will be practicing come Sunday. Oh yes, the Lady Vols almost assuredly will go to work regardless of the outcome of today's women's NCAA tournament opener against Austin Peay in Knoxville.
The top-seeded Lady Vols should roll No. 16-seeded Austin Peay, which finished 15-17 after playing a nonconference schedule so far above the Lady Govs' head their noses bled for much of January. UT has returned to its normal spot among the top five teams in the country by sweeping the SEC regular-season and tournament titles and likely will spend Sunday looking toward a second-round date Monday against Dayton or TCU.
But still, if a miracle happens, if the Lady Govs catch the upset bug that has swept the first two days of the men's tournament, what then? Well, it's a safe bet that won't happen. It's an even safer bet that if the Lady Vols snatch defeat from the jaws of virtual victory today against the overmatched Lady Govs, Pat Summitt will roll the balls out for another workout session that is long on the work and sparse on the time out.
Just a year ago, Summitt and Co. practiced in the aftermath of the program's only NCAA first-round defeat, hitting the gym after losing to Ball State.
"They've probably only realized that now," Summitt said Friday about the inconsistent work ethic of last year's team. "The three players that we had here (Angie Bjorklund, Kelley Cain and Shekinna Stricklen) have provided great leadership. ... They hold them accountable."
The Lady Vols have been responsible and respondent. They have handled all comers -- like normal, UT has faced one of the nation's most difficult schedules -- and other than a struggle at Stanford and a disappointment at Georgia, the Lady Vols have been overpowering.
What they aren't, however, is UConn, the nation's most impressive college basketball team regardless of gender, classification or designation. When UTC coach Wes Moore was asked on his weekly radio show earlier this week by Jim Reynolds whether Moore would take UConn or the field, Moore took the Huskies. His answer was quick. And telling.
In fact, the Huskies are so good, one pre-tournament prediction has this forecast for this year's Final Four: UConn over non-UConn and non-UConn over non-UConn with UConn beating non-UConn in the championship game.
Should the seeds and power rankings hold, that first "non-UConn" would be Tennessee, which is tracked to meet the Huskies in a national semifinal in San Antonio.
No coach would ever dream of discussing a potential matchup that far down the road. Summitt admitted her staff has started breaking down video of potential second-round foes but said she has not looked beyond APSU. But if the seeds hold true, a UT-UConn semifinal would be a dream for the sport.
After Summitt ended the longstanding regular-season showdown with UConn before the 2007-08 season because of a dispute with Huskies coach Geno Auriemma, the women's college basketball world has longed for a rematch. The personal conflicts between the game's two marquee coaches aside, it would a meeting between the sport's traditional power and the current heavyweight. UT and its record eight national titles against UConn and its record winning streak that stands at 72 games this morning.
The periphery drama arguably would match the stakes of earning a spot in the title game.
"Man, oh, man," Auriemma told the Hartford Courant earlier this week, "if that game is ever played in that format, it would be a disservice to all the players. ... It might even be the one time I'd be happy to talk about how many in a row we've won."
But there are more urgent matters today, more current events for the Lady Vols to tend to before that dream date. Namely, there is the matter of this weekend that starts today with the Lady Govs.
"In the tournament anybody can beat anybody. It's just a matter of who shows up and who is playing hard," Austin Peay junior guard Ashley Herring said.
This time of year, that is as concrete as it gets. That and the belief that the Lady Vols will be practicing somewhere come Sunday.
E-mail Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com