Florida Gators
Florida Atlantic
Pat Summitt's final home game? Amanda Butler, Gators set to enter emotional firestorm at Tennesee
Saturday, February 25, 2012 | Women's Basketball, Men's Swimming & Diving, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- No one is saying it's going to happen, but some in the Smoky Mountains are calling it the “elephant in the room game.”
When the 10th-ranked Tennessee Lady Volunteers take the court Sunday for their home finale, Thompson-Boling Arena will be packed to the rafters for what very well could be the final game for coaching legend and Hall-of-Famer Pat Summitt.
The opponent (and why else would you be reading about here in Harry Fodder?) will be the Florida Gators.
“Certainly, there is huge potential for emotion to run super high and those kids to play the game of their lives,” UF coach Amanda Butler said of the Lady Vols. “So, for us, we just have to go and handle business.”
Summitt, 59, stunned the college basketball world last summer when she announced she had been diagnosed with early onset dementia, a likely precursor to Alzeimers disease. For the Lady Vols, the season has offered up one support group after another, as the SEC's "We Back Pat" campaign has been passionately embraced by coaches, players and fans throughout the conference and beyond.
In recent weeks, however, Summitt reportedly has become decreasing detached from day-to-day operations off the court and play-to-play decision-making on it.
Nothing official has been announced about the status of the coach with 1,091 career victories, eight national championships and who has led one of the most dominant athletic programs in collegiate sports history since 1974. But there could be a reason the arena is opening its door 30 minutes earlier than usual in anticipation of what figures to be a passion play of emotion and sentimentality.
Enter the Gators.
At 18-10 overall and 8-7 in Southeastern Conference play, UF is fighting for an NCAA Tournament berth. Butler's bunch is playing its best basketball of the season. Thursday night's 79-45 rout of Mississippi State was the Gators' fifth win in their last seven games, and seventh in the previous 11, with having won five of its last seven, with those four losses coming against ranked teams by a combined 15 points. At the start of the week, Florida had an RPI of 32 and had played the 10th-toughest schedule in the country, and those numbers are about to rise.
Tennessee (20-8, 11-4), meanwhile, is coming off a home loss Thursday to Arkansas and needs a victory win a share of the SEC regular-season crown. 
“Obviously, there's still work to do,” senior guard Jordan Jones said. “And, obviously, there's a chance to do that work on the biggest stage of college basketball -- in Knoxville.”
The stage (and the lights beaming down on it) just might be brighter than Jones and her teammates could possibly imagine.
“Playing in Knoxville on Senior Night is going to be a really tough draw every year, but for our kids in that locker room, where we stand right now, the bigger the stage the better,” said Butler, saw first-hand the empire Summitt built while growing up in Mount Juliet, Tenn. “The more attention we're getting for who we're playing and how we're playing and where we're trying to get, it's a huge opportunity for us. There won't be anymore eyes on any other game in the country than that one.”
And most eyes in the building Sunday very well could be in tears. Even on the UF bench.
“Our players, of course, understand and certainly appreciate what it would be like to a part of a significant moment in history,” Butler said. “So, again, just a huge opportunity -- and not because of Tennessee and possible implications; we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. The opportunity, for us, is about what we need to do in the last game of the season.”
