UNC vs. Tennessee -- This Women's Game Should Rock

North Carolina basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell and her basketball team have pointed to this the entire season. They had t-shirts made up before the season that said "Rocking and Rolling and Rebounding in Cleveland." Yes, the Tar Heels believed and worked and played this season never doubting that when all was said and done they would be one of four teams headed to the Final Four in Cleveland, Ohio.

"We geared everything all year for tournament time," Hatchell said this week. "This is the time you want to be playing your best."

Carolina is. They rolled through the ACC tournament and with four wins in the big dance have marched their way through all the madness to the doorstep of a national championship. It's so close. The championship trophy can almost be touched but yet it's still so tantalizingly far.

The Tar Heels were at this point just a year ago but left the floor in Boston in the tears of a Maryland semi-final upset. Star guard Ivory Latta limped off the floor that night on an injured knee vowing to return. That loss was the impetus for this 34-3 season and Latta says just making the Final Four is not good enough now. She wants to sit on top of the mountain and flash that big Ivory smile. That's what 2007 has been about.

"I'll do whatever it takes," says the feisty senior. "I'll lay my body out on the line every single night. "I'm definitely going there to get the job done."

It won't be easy. Carolina's unfinished business of a year ago has made them hungry, but the Tennessee team they face may be even more so.

Tennessee, the most heralded program in women's basketball, has gone nine long years without a national title. This is the Volunteers' record 17th Final Four and they have won it all six times but not once since 1998.

It's not like they haven't been good. Tennessee has been to the Final Four five times during this stretch and since their last Final Four have never won fewer than 29 games but they haven't been good enough to win it all. Legendary coach Pat Summitt who has amassed 945 career wins thinks she knows why.

"I think that in previous years, I would say we've had some very fine teams, but we also played against some of our competition that had better go to players, players that could make plays. You have to have that and we didn't have a Candace Parker."

They do now. The 6-5 Parker who plays with the grace of a ballet dancer is averaging 19.9 points per game and 9.8 rebounds. She's been at her best in the NCAA tournament. But Parker knows that whatever she accomplishes individually will overshadowed if the Vols can't win a national championship.

"Something's missing," says Parker. "That's a national championship. We all knew coming in what the standard is here."

Her teammates agree.

"It's a must," says guard Alexis Hornbuckle.

Adds Tennessee center Nicky Ahoskie, "We're staring it right in the face, we have to get it."

These two teams played way back in early December in Chapel Hill and it wasn't hard to imagine that they could hook up again in early April. Carolina was clearly the better team that night winning it 70-57. Carolina's quickness flustered the Vols all night. It was almost like the Tar Heels were playing 6 on 5. Carolina seemed much more athletic and sure of themselves.

That was way back then. Tennessee is better but so is Carolina. Sylvia Hatchell loves that her team has so many weapons.

"If we need a go-to player inside, it could be Erlana Larkins or LaToya Pringle," says Hatchell, who has 751 career wins of her own. "Outside, Ivory could be hot making three's, Rashanda McCants, Camille Little. It just depends on what the other team is trying to do to us. The strength of our team is balance."

And while Tennessee has Parker, she'd better be ready to take a pounding inside.

"They're real physical and tough down there," says Purdue's Erin Lawless after Carolina's 84-72 Elite Eight win. "They're fantastic down low."

Most feel that the Carolina-Tennessee match-up will decide the national title. LSU and Rutgers really is the preliminary to this heavyweight match-up. That may be an advantage for the winner because the Heels and the Vols will spend a lot of energy in this one.

Tennessee may come into this game with more pressure. The queens of women's basketball, despite all their success, keep hearing about how long it has been between titles. The burden has become like the heavy back pack filled to the brim with books.

"It isn't about me anymore. I don't have to win another game or another championship," says Summitt. "They chose to come to Tennessee because they want to win championships. I feel a great deal of responsibility to try and help them. Candace Parker could have gone anywhere in the country. She chose to be on the stage where she knew we've won six championships but none in a while."

It's been longer since Sylvia Hatchell won her only title in 1994. She remembers the feeling and would love to experience that raw emotion again but not just for herself.

"Coach Hatchell would like nothing more that to give my players the experience of winning a national championship."

Carolina wants badly the title they thought they should have won a year ago. Tennessee wants to reclaim what that program will always believe is rightfully theirs.

Two athletic teams with coaches who have close to 1700 wins between them. You bet the desire will be there.

The fires will rage in their bellies Sunday, maybe like never before. Bumps and bruises and elbows will be ignored. There will be no time for that. These two proud teams will leave their sweat and tears and all the energy they have on that court in Cleveland.

Both want it this game so badly. And that's what makes this tournament what it is.