The Daily Times

Someone’s idea of designating Tennessee’s game against Connecticut as the day for having everyone — including UT players and coaching staff — wear “We Back Pat” T-shirts to support Pat Summitt’s foundation against Alzhemier’s turned into much more than an oblique reference to the Lady Vol coach’s long-standing-but-no-longer-annual rivalry with Geno Auriemma and his UConn women’s team.

Besides the $55,000 raised to provide for education and awareness of the disease with which Summitt has been diagnosed, the resulting upset of the No. 13 Huskies by the Volunteers provided an opportunity for UT men’s coach Cuonzo Martin to voice his support for Summitt’s approach to the game of basketball — albeit without mentioning her directly.

It certainly wasn’t the prettiest hoops contest you’d want to see, especially in the first half when neither the Huskies nor the Vols could break the 30-point mark, but it was exactly the kind of ugly, defensive-minded effort upon which Summitt has built her reputation as a winner over the years.

“This is the way a Tennessee will defend as long as I’m part of the program,” Martin said of the Vols’ ability to hold the hot-shooting Huskies (47.9 percent from the floor) to just 36.4 percent, the second lowest of the season.

“I tell our guys, let’s hang our hat on the defensive side of the ball.”

Later, Martin commented that it may not have been as noticeable so far as he would like, but he wants his teams to pound the ball inside. Had he mentioned rebounding in the same breath, he would have been awarded the Lady Vols’ trifecta for years of success. That the Vols actually did outrebound UConn by two, despite the Huskies’ larger post players, was probably enough.Along the way, Martin unknowingly echoed Summitt again when he said he wasn’t all that concerned with his team’s shooting percentages — or those of individual players — as long as the Volunteers kept their focus on defense and showing strength in the paint.

As an example of this emphasis, he has only to run film of the win over Connecticut, in which point guard Trae Golden, the team’s leading scorer, produced only two points but was focused on distributing the basketball to his teammates and on defending against UConn at the other end.

And with Golden not trying to absorb so much scoring responsibility on the perimeter, the Vols went inside throughout the game. Freshman Jarnell Stokes produced the first double-double of his career and Jeronne Maymon recorded a solid eight points and seven rebounds. That freed shooting guard Cameron Tatum for some crucial 3-pointers.

“Our guys were hungry for the victory,” Martin said.

And now Martin’s guys need to set the table for dinner at Vanderbilt on Tuesday in the same way they did for UConn.

Leonard Butts is sports editor. He wrote from Knoxville. Write to him at The Daily Times, P.O. Box 9740, Maryville, TN 37802, or email him at (leonard.butts@thedailytimes.com)

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