Candace Parker has been carrying her Tennessee Vols on her broad shoulders and fantastic wingspan for the past three years. She’s rarely buckled under the weight. To the contrary, she’s soared – above the rim -- to the rarified heights of a national title and just about every individual honor she could gather.
In this tournament, perhaps she’s feeling the strain. She’s certainly feeling the pain.
She dislocated her left shoulder twice in Tuesday night’s Oklahoma City Regional Final against upstart Texas A&M. The twisting wince on her face said it all as she ran toward the sideline, her shoulder grotesquely protruding. She had dislocated her right in the second round against Purdue.
Parker had been dominating the Aggies, having scored 16 straight points in the first half for a total of 18 before she dislocated the shoulder on a steal and fast break with 3:50 remaining. She went to the locker room with trainer Jenny Moshak to get it popped back in and returned to the game a little more than a minute later. It popped out again while she was defending at the top of the key with less than a minute left in the half. The Vols hadn’t scored since Parker’s first injury, and the pesky, defense-minded Aggies had closed the score to 27-29.
Moshak worked Parker’s arm, trying to get the muscles firing properly, during Coach Pat Summitt’s searing halftime speech imploring her players to leave it all on the court so they could move on with no regrets.
But the Vols returned to the floor without their senior leader. She was still in the locker room as a search was mounted for the proper shoulder brace. It was up to senior Nicky Anosike to gather her teammates and remind them that their defense would get them to the Final Four.
The defense of Anosike and two other senior starters – guards Shannon Bobbitt and Alexis Hornbuckle – kept them in the game while scoring was scarce. Parker watched on a locker room TV as her teammates keep themselves in the game. And perhaps a weight was lifted.
At least, a brace was located, in the team bus underbelly, and Parker returned to the game with 10:39 left and the score tied at 36. She missed badly her first two shots, and A&M went up 40-36. But Parker managed to get herself to the foul line down the stretch – and Hornbuckle hit a shot-clock-beating 3 from Knoxville -- and the Vols prevailed, 53-45, to go to their 18th Final Four. Parker finished with a game-high 26 points. Hornbuckle backed her up with 14.
“I was just going to play as hard as I could and not to think about my shoulder and my situation,” Parker said. “I didn’t want this to be the last time that we played together.”
It won’t be. They’ll face SEC rival LSU in an effort to bring an eighth national championship back to Tennessee after a Willis Reed-like effort from Parker.
“People, sometimes they see Candace as more of a finesse player but I think sometimes when you see finesse players, you don’t realize just how mentally tough they are until you see them fight through the adversity that she fought through tonight,” Summitt said.
Summitt knows what Parker was feeling. The coach recently dislocated her shoulder – while chasing a raccoon from her porch. Fitting that the coach who preaches defense would go down defending herself and her pooch.
And fitting that Tennessee would, as a team, out-defense the scrappy Aggies to live on.