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KNOXVILLE -- If you thought the team that lost to Ball State in the first round of last year's NCAA Tournament had been exorcised by a year's worth of experience and an offseason of hard work, you might have to reconsider.

Somewhere between a 75-48 win at Mississippi State a week ago and an escape from disaster at Florida on Thursday, the Tennessee Lady Vols seem to have lost their way.

The huge wave of momentum created by overwhelming every opponent except No. 2 Stanford crested with a 96-75 victory over No. 14 Oklahoma and seemed certain to carry UT above and beyond the rest of the Southeastern Conference contenders.

The blasting of Mississippi State reaffirmed that sense of how the rest of the season might go.

But it quickly dissipated with a visit to The Swamp, where unranked Florida had the No. 4 Lady Vols backed into a corner but then let them get away when Angie Bjorklund hit a layup with two seconds left.

That letdown seemed merely an aberration when Tennessee took a 20-point lead over rival Vanderbilt with 7:59 left in the first half Sunday at Thompson-Boling Arena.

The relief Pat Summitt must have felt didn't last long, however. A barrage of 3-point shots by the Commodores closed the difference to single digits by halftime, and the remainder of the contest had an eerie resemblance to how UT played in Gainesville recently and against Ball State nearly a year ago.

"I'd have been very disappointed if we'd lost either of these games," Summitt said of the narrow victories over Florida and Vandy.

"But I know how the coaches feel. We don't want to live on the edge the rest of the season. We want to separate ourselves from the pack."

Having once accomplished that with an offense that was outscoring most opponents by nearly 20 points, the Lady Vols now find themselves struggling to hold a lead and to defend squads with less depth and talent. That doesn't bode well for what the schedule holds next -- a return to the road for games against Georgia and LSU, teams for which a win over Tennessee would be a huge boost in the race for the regular season title.

The source of the Lady Vols' problem, Summitt says, is a lapse in scoring and defending on the perimeter. Bench play has also been lackluster in the last couple of contests. Those are the same characteristics that defined play last season, and Summitt is intent on interrupting the flashback as soon as possible.

Otherwise, her summary of the performance against Vanderbilt might stand long enough to be applied once again when March comes around.

"I thought we got off to a good start and then the bottom fell out," she said.

Leonard Butts is sports editor. Write to him at The Daily Times, P.O. Box 9740, Maryville, TN 37802, or e-mail him at leonard.butts@thedailytimes.com