Spokane may be the toughest regional from top to bottom, but at least No. 1 seed Maryland gets to start work on scaling the first part of that summit from the comfort of the Comcast Center in College Park, Md. No such luck for the defending champs, the Tennessee Lady Vols, who could conceivably face Purdue on its home court in the second round and Oklahoma in the Sweet 16 in Oklahoma City, just a short drive up I-35 from the Sooners’ home turf in Norman.
Pat Summitt’s squad won’t catch many breaks on the road to Tampa.
Tennessee’s draw is tough enough to make that second-round encounter with Purdue arguably a preferred outcome. No. 8 seed Utah appeared headed for a seed two or three lines better before its collapse against Colorado State in the Mountain West tournament. That loss aside, these are still the same Utes who rolled through a three-bid conference without a loss in the regular season and spent recent weeks entrenched in the RPI top 20.
And that’s all just the first weekend, before the Lady Vols would head to Oklahoma City for what could shape up as a chance to win a regional and an honorary Big 12 title all in one.
Oklahoma didn’t earn anything better for itself than the fourth seed after a late-season slide. And there are absolutely no guarantees Sherri Coale’s team will even have any games left to play when it picks up its bags at Will Rogers World Airport after a potential second-round encounter with Notre Dame in that team’s backyard. But as Tennessee can attest after escaping with a 70-67 win against the Sooners in November in the same arena that will host the Final Four in Tampa, it’s always safer to pick fights that don’t involve 40 minutes of bouncing off Courtney Paris in the paint.

sports.espn.go.com