Anyone who watched Audrey McDonald during her four seasons in the Kokomo Lady Kats basketball program knows that even beyond her shooting touch, she’s known for her competitiveness.
Monday night she learned of the challenge — and the opportunity of her young life.
McDonald and her Ball State teammates, 24 hours after winning the program’s first Mid-American Conference Tournament championship, gathered at Damon’s Grill in Muncie for the unveiling of the NCAA Women’s Tournament bracket.
And there it was — Ball State vs. Tennessee, Sunday night in Bowling Green, Ky.
That’s Tennessee as in two-time defending national champion.
That’s Tennessee as in legendary, record-setting coach Pat Summitt.
That’s Tennessee as in the program that has been in every one of the 28 NCAA tournaments and until Monday night had never been seeded lower than fourth.
And McDonald? Well, she couldn’t be happier.
“It was kind of a shock,” she said by phone Tuesday afternoon while naturally, shooting hoops on her day off from practice.
“Then after the shock, it was like … what an opportunity!,” she continued. “Absolutely we want to play Tennessee. It was every girl’s dream to play there and now we have that chance to play against one of the most historic programs and coach Summitt. We’re one of the few teams that gets that chance and as a competitor, if you’re going to the dance, you want to play the best.”
Tennessee has certainly been the best over the last three decades. Its eight national championships is more than any woman’s program in the country and second overall only to the UCLA men’s basketball program (11).
Summitt recently made headlines with her 1,000th victory with the Vols. That win total was impressive, but not nearly as much as her won-lost record (1,005-192) and staggering winning percentage (.839).
Her Vols are down a bit this season (22-10) after graduating five key seniors from teams that registered back-to-back national titles. Seven outstanding freshmen joined the program this season — but they are freshmen — and thus the uncharacteristic 10 losses and No. 5 seed.
“We don’t know a lot about [Tennessee] yet, but we know they are young,” McDonald said. “We think they’re beatable. All it takes is one good game and you’re moving on.”
Under first-year coach Kelly Packard, the Cardinals have had a lot of good games — setting a program standard with 25 victories — the record-setting 25th win coming Sunday over Bowling Green (28-4).
McDonald is still in a bit of a daze with that victory and all that has followed.
“It’s pretty amazing to know you are going down in the record books as the first Ball State team to play in the [NCAA] tournament. I wasn’t really aware [the program] had never been to the tournament until Sunday. That just made this all the more special.”
The 5-foot-8 junior guard knows all about winning. An Indiana All-Star, she played in 100 games at Kokomo, helping the Kats to an 87-14 record that included the 2003 Class 4A state championship. Her 238 3-point baskets is a career mark and she’s on track to set the career record at Ball State as well. She’s hit 91 of 223 treys this season, setting a school mark for makes and her shooting percentage (.408) ranks 25th nationally.
McDonald has started all 33 games, averaging 11.4 points, She ranks second on the team in steals, second in free throw accuracy (.862) and third in assists.
McDonald was reminded that at graduation, the KHS school newspaper had predicted she would be the first member of the class to be on ESPN. She laughed about it, agreeing that ESPN2 (which carries Sunday’s game at approximately 9:45 p.m.) was close enough.
Oh, and by the way, the fact that Tennessee is 42-0 in first and second round NCAA Tournament games didn’t seem to inflict much pain on the cheery McDonald.
“Hey,” she said, “that’s great — icing on the cake.”
Dave Kitchell is the Tribune’s sports editor. He may be reached by e-mail at dave.kitchell@kokomotribune.com.
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