Painful victory for Parker, Tennessee
OKLAHOMA CITY -- With Tennessee's best player struggling to keep her arm in its socket, the fate of the women's basketball powerhouse depended on someone digging through laundry in the team bus.
Candace Parker's shoulder needed to be stabilized, and someone needed to find a sleeve to do the trick. Needless to say, college basketball's winningest coach was a little bit antsy.
"I'm about to have a fit as to why we don't have it right there," said Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt.
Once the sleeve was located and Parker put it on, Tennessee was back on track for the Final Four.
Parker dislocated her left shoulder but still scored 26 points to lead the Lady Vols out of a second-half deficit for a 53-45 victory over Texas A&M in the Oklahoma City regional final Tuesday night.
She twice left the game in the first half with the injury, and she didn't return until about halfway through the second half. She scored 6 of the Lady Vols' points in an 8-0 run as they overcame a 42-37 deficit.
"I was just going to play as hard as I could and not to think about my shoulder and my situation," Parker said. "I didn't want this to be the last time that we played together."
She scored only 8 points in the second half, but it was enough to push the Lady Vols (34-2) ahead when combined with a sturdy defensive effort that kept Texas A&M (29-8) scoreless for a five-minute stretch.
The sleeve wasn't an immediate fix. Her first shot was an airball on a jumper from the foul line, and then she couldn't convert a layup off a lob at the right block.
Parker turned a second alley-oop attempt into a successful layup, and that got the Lady Vols' run going. Shannon Bobbitt followed with 2 free throws, and Parker hit 2 of her own to put Tennessee ahead 43-42 with 3:44 to play.
She went 1-for-2 on two successive trips to the foul line to stretch the lead to 3.
After a free throw by the Aggies' Takia Starks, Parker lost the ball in the lane but was able to recover and pass to Alexis Hornbuckle for a deep 3-pointer that gave the Lady Vols a 48-43 edge with 48.8 seconds left.
Hornbuckle and Bobbitt each hit 2 free throws after that to seal the win, and Parker added another to cap her regional MVP performance.
"People, sometimes they see Candace as more of a finesse player, but I think sometimes when you see finesse players, you don't realize just how mentally tough they are until you see them fight through the adversity that she fought through tonight," Summitt said.
Summitt can understand what Parker went through. She dislocated her shoulder recently -- although her injury occurred while she was trying to shoo a raccoon off her back porch. Not exactly with the Final Four on the line.
"Let me tell you. It is very, very painful, and I can't imagine the fact that she went through that twice tonight," Summitt said. "But obviously she's a lot stronger than Coach Summitt and so she's got something to protect her a little bit better."
Top-seeded Tennessee advances to the Final Four for the sixth time in the past seven seasons, where it will face Southeastern Conference rival LSU. The teams split their two meetings this season.
The Lady Tigers beat Tennessee during the regular season but lost in the SEC tournament championship game. The Lady Vols are seeking their eighth national championship, and their second straight.