Formidable Foe Awaits American

American University has had its fun. The students stormed the Bender Arena court after the Patriot League championship, lined up for NCAA tournament tickets in the wee hours and provided the team with a merry send-off during a rally on the campus quad Wednesday.

Alumni scoured the Internet for cheap travel to Birmingham, Ala., and the athletic department basked in the glow of unprecedented national attention.

But after a dizzying week on the small campus in upper Northwest Washington, Coach Jeff Jones and his players are faced with this stark reality: The 15th-seeded Eagles must play one of the most explosive teams in the country, second-seeded Tennessee, at 12:15 p.m. today at BJCC Arena.

"We knew it would be a high-caliber team -- you can't escape that fact when you come out of our league," Jones said. "And in this particular year, there is probably less difference between the second seeds and the first seeds in recent memory. So we know what we are up against."

The Eagles' 21 victories are the most for the program since Gary Williams's final year as coach in 1981-82, which was also the last time they participated in a national tournament (the NIT). But other than beating Williams's Maryland Terrapins in College Park and falling by 27 to Georgetown in consecutive games in December of this season, AU (21-11) has not been in a situation like it will encounter today.

"Everybody is saying we can't win, but that's okay," said junior point guard Derrick Mercer, whose team has won 10 of 11 since a slow start in league play but has not played outside the Washington area in more than a month (five home games and a trip to Annapolis to play Navy).

"We've been proving everybody wrong all season," he added. "We're not going to roll over for anybody."

The Volunteers, though, are a threat to roll over almost anybody. They average 83 points, best in the Southeastern Conference for the third consecutive year, and surpassed the 100-point plateau three times, including once against two-time defending champion Florida. Senior guard Chris Lofton averages a team-leading 16.1 points, shoots nearly 40 percent on three-pointers and is among six Volunteers to score 2,000 career points. He is also the SEC's all-time leader in three-pointers made.

When not trying to stop Tennessee's diverse offense, the Eagles must also be prepared for 40 minutes of feverish Volunteers defense that forced 18.2 turnovers per game.

"Their relentless pressure is contrary to what we are most comfortable in," Jones said. "Georgetown geared it up against us. They wanted to get us out of our patterns, but Tennessee tries to disrupt you all over the court. They make people turn it over three, four, five times just trying to put the ball in bounds every game. Everyone knows about the pressure and we've got to be prepared. Hopefully we will be."

For the Eagles to keep it close, they will need junior guard Garrison Carr to match Lofton's production. Carr's challenge will not just be making three-pointers -- he averages four per game -- but shedding defenders and finding space to get off his shot.

Carr made 5 of 7 three-pointers against Georgetown's renowned defense and made 7 of 14 on the road against a quality Dayton team.

"There are only select teams in the nation that play like Tennessee and have the same mentality," Carr said. "It's fast-paced, it's aggressive. They're going to get shots as quickly as possible and they are not going to worry about making mistakes. There's going to be pressure on us all game and it's going to be high intensity. We are going to have to be prepared for all kinds of things."