REACTION: Ball State 71, Tennessee 55

Again, this is a Maryland women's basketball blog. But this absolutely has to be talked about:




Yours truly, while revealing my NCAA tournament picks for the Berkeley region:

(5) Tennessee over (12) Ball State - Like I'm picking against Pat Summitt in
the first round. Get serious. The Cardinal are potentially dangerous...but
they're not upsetting a Pat Summitt led team in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Sorry, girls.

Mechelle Voepel, previewing Iowa State's tourney chances in a post on her blog:

Which brings us to Iowa State, which is a No. 4 seed. And if the Cyclones
win their first-round game against East Tennessee State, they will face No. 5
seed Tennessee _ if the Vols beat Ball State. If Tennessee loses to Ball State, the world will probably come to an end.

Start stockpiling the canned goods.

I watched this game. I watched it pretty much from start to finish. Why? It was Tennessee in its most vulnerable hour and I wanted to see how they would react. Would they lose? Probably not, but maybe. Maybe.

Tennessee maybe losing in the first round of the NCAA tournament was just one of many unprecedented, unbelievable things about tonight's game.

To start, the state Tennessee was in coming in to this tournament was absolutely unprecedented and unbelievable. The fact that the Vols were 22-10 and a 5 seed coming in was shocking enough by itself. Everyone should know by now just how rocky of a season it's been in Knoxville and how stunning and ridiculous and just flat-out unbelievable it's been the whole way. They've been humiliated on their home court by Virginia and Duke. They got crushed at Auburn. They lost at Memorial Gym in Kentucky for the first time in a couple of decades, prompting Pat Summitt to say that her team had the least amount of energy she'd seen in her over two decades of coaching. She threw them out of their locker room, for goodness sake. All of this is pretty much unique. It's certainly unique since I've been following the game.

I wasn't a women's basketball fan in 1997, when the Vols had a similar year with 10 losses coming in to the tournament. That year they ended up with a 3 seed and won the whole thing, finally figuring it out, snapping their fingers, and becoming Tennessee at just the right time to capture yet another national title. I didn't necessarily think the same thing would happen this year but I certainly believed that they'd make the Sweet 16. After all, that's what Pat Summitt does at Tennessee, right? Um, right?

So that's why I was so intrigued by tonight's game. Tennessee, in its most dire and vulnerable hour, taking the floor against a "potentially dangeorus" Ball State team (that was the one thing I got right in my analysis of the game; the Cardinals certainly proved that tonight.) How would they play? Would they turn it on and blow them out, sending a message to everyone else that Tennessee was back to normal and ready to go out and make a run for St. Louis? Would they struggle? Would they, *gasp*, lose, for the first time ever in the first round and for the first time ever before the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament?

Things started out okay. Kelley Cain laid it up to score the game's first points. Porchia Green missed a three. Maybe this is the way things will go all night?

Uh, not quite.

When Kiley Jarrett got the Cardinals on the board at the 18:35 mark with a three to cut it to 4-3, a certain energy was felt. The Ball State fans, and there were many (although, not nearly as many as the Tennessee fans, obviously), roared wildly. The Cardinals looked excited and alive. You immediately got the feeling that they wouldn't be going away that easily just yet.

Then Tennessee scored the next four points to make it 8-3. Blowout city time? Not quite. Because that's when Porchia Green decided to get heated up. She hit a J to make it 8-5. Tennessee hits a couple of free throws to make it 10-5. Porchia Green for three. 10-8. Cain lays it up to restore the four point edge. Green answers with a layup of her own. 12-10.

That little sequence, from the 16:35 mark until 13:43, confirmed what we thought: Ball State wasn't just going to hand this over and, more specifically, Porchia Green had come to play tonight. Tennessee didn't have an answer for her.

They wouldn't for the rest of the night. Green ended up with 23 points and 8 rebounds.

Anyway, Cain laid it in about 15 seconds later to keep the Vols ahead by 4 but then Green's teammates started getting in to it. Kiley Jarrett hit a jumper. Patricia King made a layup. Tie game! Danielle Gratton buries a jumper. Holy cow..Ball State leads!

Even at 16-14 with 10:47 to go in the first half, it was still stunning to see Tennessee behind in a first round NCAA tournament game. We're talking about a program that has won all of its first round games by an average of 23 points since the tournament expanded to 64 teams. We're talking about a program that was the last to hit the century mark in an NCAA tournament game before UConn did today. We're talking about Tennessee. Tennessee. In a first round NCAA tournament game. They shouldn't be losing. Ever.

When Jarrett knocked down a jumper at the 6:25 mark, it put Ball State ahead 21-18. 21-18! How does Tennessee respond to being down by a whole three points? With a quick 6-0 run that forces Kelly Packard, Ball State's first year coach, to call timeout. And a smart timeout it was by her. If she let her team keep playing, who knows what might have happened. Just one small part of the masterful job she did against Summitt. It's not a stretch to say that Kelly Packard out-coached Pat Summitt tonight.

It's not a stretch to say that Kelly Packard out-coached Pat Summitt tonight.

Unbelievable.

The Cardinals responded with a 8-4 run to close out the half. When Gratton knocked down a J to give them a 29-28 lead with 39 seconds to go, the feeling was, "oh my god, Tennessee might be down going in to halftime." When Alex Fuller missed a jumper following Angie Bjorklund's miss and the rebound was corralled by the Cardinals, they knew they'd have the lead going in to half. Green's buzzer-beating three missed but still, the Cardinals were ahead 29-28 at the break.

Tennessee, down by 1, at the half. In the first round of the NCAA tournament to a 12 seed making its first ever NCAA tournament appearance.

Is this really happening?

This was probably when I really started believing that the Lady Vols just might lose this game. I mean, I was stunned. I still figured they'd come out and handle things in the second half...but I had expected them to handle things already. They hadn't.

So the second half comes on and, as expected, the Vols start off strong. Specifically, Bjorklund starts off strong as she puts together a personal 5-0 run to give her team a 33-29 lead. It was here where I assumed Tennessee would win. I thought the run would keep going and they'd cruise on in to victory. That's part of why I left my room and went to chill in a friend's room for a few minutes. I was talking to him about the game and as I left, I said, in jest, "I'm gonna go back and watch Tennessee lose now."

I didn't really mean it entirely (or at all, I was being completely tongue-in-cheek and about 85% sarcastic), though I still weighed the possibility because of how I knew it was only a five point game and that the Lady Vols were battled evenly throughout the entire first half. But, like I said, I still figured they'd end up eventually winning.

When I re-entered my room and Ball State was actually ahead, I was like "holy $&!%, they actually might lose!"

I think it was something like 45-41 as I re-entered the room. I believe the score was in the 40's but all I know for sure is that Ball State was winning. As I waited for the (thought to be) inevitable Tennessee comeback and the Vols continued to look human--playing poorly, missing threes, turning the ball over, allowing the opponent to score at will--I thought one thought that stayed with me for the rest of the game and that has stayed with me for most of the evening:

"Oh my god, Tennessee just isn't that good. They're just like every other women's basketball team. They're just not very good at all."

Now, at first glance, that quote comes off the wrong way. I do NOT mean to say that every other women's basketball teams is bad. There are good ones and bad ones and ones that fall in the middle, just like any other sport. I mean to say that Tennessee is not very good at all and by being not very good, they aren't like they normally are, which is perched with the other elites of the game. They're not UConn or Duke or Maryland or Oklahoma. They're just...normal. Like everyone else. Not "very good" at all.

On the other hand, I DID mean to say that Tennessee was terrible. Because, yes, they were terrible on this night. Absolutely terrible. They only made two three pointers while clanging 16 of them. They turned it over 16 times. They allowed the Cardinals to shoot 57.1 percent from the floor in the second half and hit 7 threes on the game, many of them on uncontested (or barely contested) looks. They looked PATHETIC. Simply put, they had a bad night, just like almost everyone else in women's college basketball is suspectable to. Usually, Tennessee teams are impervious to games like this. Even when they play poorly, they usually win. It takes a special combo of poor play from them and exceptional play from the opponent to pull off the upset. Even then, it's still almost always a very close game.

In short, it's never a 16 point blowout for the opponent, like tonight turned out to be.

Of all the stunning things about tonight, perhaps most stunning is that not only did Tennessee not storm back at the end, they actually fell further and further behind. Ball State not only kept its lead but expanded on it in the waning minutes. Can you believe that? I mean honestly, take a step back and think for a second. Can you believe that Ball State turned an 8 point advantage at the under 4 TV timeout in to a 16 point final margin? In the game's final segment, the Cardinals doubled their lead. DOUBLED IT. Against Tennessee. TENNESSEE. In the NCAA tournament.

Sometimes you watch sports and you know when you get an unforgettable feeling. Watching as Ball State kept adding on to that lead at the end was an unforgettable feeling. An unforgettable feeling of absolute shock. Same with when the final whistle blew and it was official. Same with when Pat Summitt was being interviewed by ESPN in the wake of the upset. Same with pretty much the rest of the next 20 minutes, while ESPN's studio hosts analyzed the loss (even though a potential 2-15 upset, what would have been another first in women's college basketball, was going on.) An unforgettable feeling of absolute shock.

That unforgettable feeling of absolute shock might be why Mechelle Voepel is right about this being the biggest, most historic upset in the history of women's college basketball. In terms of pure talent differential and pure differential in quality between teams, it's far from the biggest. First of all, 5-12's, while not nearly as common as on the men's side, happen semi-frequently in the women's game and there was already one yesterday with Gonzaga over Xavier. This upset isn't nearly as big as, say, Marist over Ohio State or Liberty over Penn State, in terms of sheer difference in talent and team ability. Again, Ball State ended the season red-hot with the 11 straight victories to close the season and the MAC tournament title over ranked and regular season champion Bowling Green, and the Tennessee problems were well-documented even earlier in this post.

Nonetheless, this upset is the biggest, most historic, most stunning in the history of the game. Tennessee is Tennessee. Tennessee doesn't lose in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Tennessee doesn't lose to low seeds (this was their first loss to a seed lower than 4.) Tennessee doesn't lose to tournament newcomers. Tennessee doesn't lose to mid-majors. Tennessee doesn't lose by 16 points PERIOD. Tennessee doesn't look human. Tennessee doesn't look like every other program in women's college basketball. I mean, these are things that just don't happen.

But they all did tonight. And that's why this upset is the biggest, most historic, and most stunning in the history of women's college basketball and that's why it got a long post on a Maryland Terrapins blog talking solely about it.

Ball State 71, Tennessee 55: a score that will live on forever in women's college basketball and in sports history.