Point guard Special Jennings passed the ball and darted through the thicket of Xavier players in the lane during a three-on-three drill Saturday, getting ready for their NCAA tournament opener.
First, she had to maneuver around 6-foot-5 Amber Harris, the two-time Atlantic 10 player of the year. Then, she doubled back and bumped into 6-6 Ta'Shia Phillips, the nation's second-leading rebounder.
''You know, I'm tired of beating them up in practice,'' Jennings said. ''I think we are ready.''
Ready for one more go-around.
Second-seeded Xavier (28-2) opens the tournament on its home court for the second year in a row. This time, the Musketeers have a higher seed and a different mindset. They lost to Stanford in the Elite Eight last season and returned four senior starters, including Jennings, Harris and Phillips.
The Musketeers have won 18 in a row heading into their opener Sunday against South Dakota State (19-13). Vanderbilt (20-11) and Louisville (20-12) play the other game.
''It's different because we're seniors, so there is no, 'You know, what if we come out and don't play as well as we should? OK, we will come back and get it next year,''' Jennings said.
Everything that Xavier did this season has been aimed at getting ready for tournament time. The Musketeers' two losses came on the road, in back-to-back games at Duke and Stanford when Jennings had a broken finger and Harris was limited by a concussion.
Last year, Xavier ended a streak of four straight first-round losses by beating East Tennessee State and Vanderbilt at home, where it has won 23 straight. The second Elite Eight appearance in school history raised expectations.
It usually comes down to how teams handle Harris and Phillips, who form one of the top front-line duos in the country. South Dakota State, making its third straight appearance as Summit League champs, is going to have to try a little bit of everything to slow them down.
''They're just so good around the basket,'' coach Aaron Johnston said. ''A lot of teams would be just tickled to have one player of either of their caliber on their team, and now we go against two of them at the same time.''
Xavier's ascendance as a national program started under coach Melanie Balcomb, who then moved on to Vanderbilt. She has a lot of good memories at the Cintas Center, though her last visit wasn't one of them.
The Commodores let a 10-point lead over Xavier slip away in the second half, then missed two potential winning shots in the closing seconds, the last by guard Jence Rhoads. The Musketeers held on for a 63-62 win.
Balcomb didn't expect to be back in Cincinnati again so soon.
''They don't usually send you to the same place in back-to-back years,'' she said. ''But again, as you can see, a lot of things were determined by geography.''
The Commodores' 12th straight NCAA tournament appearance provides a chance for a different outcome on the same court where their season ended a year ago.
''A loss like that is always hard to get over,'' said Rhoads, whose last-second shot hit both sides of the rim and fell off. ''It's just one of those things that happened, and we are happy to be back here and get a second chance.''
Louisville (20-12) was the first of the four teams to practice Saturday, holding a workout that was so much better than a year ago.
The Cardinals lost the national title game to Connecticut in 2009, then endured a rough season full of injuries. They went 14-18 last season and didn't make the NCAA tournament, even though Freedom Hall was one of the opening-round sites.
Coach Jeff Walz made his players watch the other teams' practices.
''We had the opportunity to host and unfortunately did not perform as well as we needed to,'' Walz said. ''I thought for our players to understand what we're trying to do with this program here, they needed to go to practice. They needed to see the opportunity that we had just blown and really appreciate the amount of support that we get.''
Watching Kentucky, Michigan State, Bowling Green and Liberty practice on their home court didn't sit well with the Cardinals, who turned it into motivation.
''It was really embarrassing, actually,'' junior guard Monique Reid said. ''I was kind of mad at coach for making us do it, but I understood at the end it was motivation. We came out this year with a different mentality.''
