Parker propels Vols
Coach Pat Summitt wanted to see how her Tennessee Lady Vols responded to an ugly, sloppy loss at home.
They snapped back into form pretty well.
Candace Parker scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, and top-ranked host Tennessee bounced back from a home loss with a 81-68 victory over No. 25 Vanderbilt on Sunday.
"If they play like they played today just in terms of the effort, we're going to win a lot of basketball games and we're going to be alive and well in the postseason," Summitt said. "But it has to be a habit. It can't be a one-game situation."
Tennessee (23-2, 9-1 Southeastern Conference), which beat Vanderbilt for the 15th straight time, risked slipping from first to third in the conference with a second straight loss. On Thursday, the Lady Vols lost to No. 7 LSU 78-62 at home.
Summitt followed that with a meeting Friday where the coaches talked followed by a players' only session.
"We said that we can't wait like we did last year until the postseason to turn it on and expect to win a national championship and basically we just said that we need to stop talking about it and be about it," Parker said of their meeting.
"Actions speak louder than words. We've talked all year about playing 40 minutes, and we've yet to do it."
They came pretty close Sunday.
The Lady Vols, expected to drop from No. 1 in today's new poll, hadn't lost consecutive games since 2006 when they lost to Duke and Kentucky.
It was never really close against Vanderbilt (19-7, 8-3), which snapped a six-game winning streak and has not beaten Tennessee since Feb. 16, 2002.
Angie Bjorklund added 15 points for Tennessee, and Alex Fuller had 14 off the bench.
Christina Wirth led Vanderbilt with 14 points, and Merideth Marsh had 11.
UConn 90, Pittsburgh 64: Renee Montgomery scored 17 points, and No. 2 Connecticut (24-1, 11-1 Big East) used an 18-2 run to end the first half to beat host No. 18 Pittsburgh. Mallorie Winn scored 16 points to lead the Panthers (18-7, 8-3).
N. Carolina 97, Fla. St. 77: Erlana Larkins had 18 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists and 6 steals to lead No. 3 North Carolina (24-2, 11-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) over visiting Florida State. Tanae Davis-Cain led the Seminoles (15-10, 5-5) with 25 points.
Maryland 76, Duke 69: Crystal Langhorne had 25 points and 12 rebounds to help fourth-ranked Maryland beat No. 12 host Duke, a victory that came hours after Terrapins coach Brenda Frese gave birth to twin boys.
Kristi Toliver added 23 points for the Terrapins (27-2, 11-1 Atlantic Coast Conference).
Abby Waner had 13 points to lead the Blue Devils (19-7, 8-3).