The Lady Vols are back at practice to prepare for the NCAA tourney, which will start for Tennessee on the road with a trip to Ohio.

The seniors entered the season knowing it would be the final one in college. But it really registers in March when it’s win or go home.

“I try not to think about it, because it’s coming down to the end,” said fifth-year senior guard Samara Spencer, who transferred to Tennessee after four seasons at Arkansas. “But that’s really my main focus right now. Leaving everything on the court, going into practice every day, knowing that it could potentially be one of the last practices that I practice.”

Fifth-year senior Tess Darby, who has played the entirety of her career at Tennessee, also knows the clock is ticking, and March is when veterans emerge.

“I think the person who has stepped up the most has been Tess Darby,” Lady Vols coach Kim Caldwell said. “She has been a completely different player since our SEC tournament. She’s vocal. She’s playing harder. She’s having fun. She’s talking a little trash in practice, which is not really in her character. She’s leading. She’s putting people the right spot. She wants to win.

“And she came to me, and she said she wants to win. She wants to win for her teammates. She knows she doesn’t have a career after this. She knows that she has a few weeks of basketball left, and she wants to win and make Tennessee proud, but she wants to win for her teammates, so they can get their individual goals, which I thought was just such a great statement.”

Tess Darby, Samara Spencer, Alyssa Latham, Jillian Hollingshead and Ruby Whitehorn are all smiles at Arkansas. (Tennessee Athletics)

It takes that kind of motivation and selflessness to find success in March. Tennessee also has to shake the disappointment of not hosting and instead making a trip to Columbus.

No. 5 seed Tennessee, 22-9, will meet No. 12 seed South Florida, 23-10, in the first round on Friday, March 21, at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus. Tip time is set for 8 p.m. Eastern with the broadcast on ESPN.

No. 4 seed Ohio State will host No. 13 seed Montana State, 30-3, at 5:30 p.m. with that game on ESPN2. The winners will meet Sunday, March 23, in the second round for a berth in the Sweet 16 in Birmingham at a time to be determined.

While some pundits already are looking ahead to Tennessee and Ohio State, the Bulls of South Florida have a veteran coach –  Jose Fernandez is in his 25th season – and his teams have plenty of postseason experience. The Bulls shoot well, especially from the arc, take care of the ball, shoot well from the line and like low-scoring games. It also is a veteran squad with international players, several of whom transferred from power 4 Division I schools.

When asked about teams in the bracket, Caldwell was succinct: “You can’t face them if you don’t win the first one.”

Jewel Spear sets up against Texas A&M in the SEC tourney (Kate Luffman/ Tennessee Athletics)

One thing the Lady Vols shouldn’t lose sight of is the lasting success of the program. Tennessee has earned a bid in all 43 NCAA tourneys since the event began in 1982. It’s a list of one. The Lady Vols are the only program to accomplish that feat. Given the powerhouses in the sport, the fact Tennessee has never missed the Big Dance should not be overlooked.

“It means a lot,” fifth-year senior Jewel Spear said. “We have a lot of great players ahead of us that set the stage for us, and we’re just keeping it going. We’re appreciative of the people that have always had the jersey on and the people that are going to put the jersey on as well.”

The break between the SEC tourney and the NCAA tourney has been beneficial for Tennessee. The Lady Vols didn’t end the season playing their best basketball and are grateful for a second shot in March.

“I think we’re all on the same page,” Spear said. “I really do. As a team, very competitive practice, competing against each other, having fun and the little things, high fives, joking around with each other and just getting back to us and what we love to do and just being a gritty team out there.”

Spear played three seasons at Wake Forest before transferring to Tennessee a year ago. Like Darby, she stayed put after the coaching change when Caldwell came aboard last April.

“We’ve played a lot of tough teams this year,” Spear said. “We played a lot of tough teams close, but we’ve also beaten a really good team in UConn and other good teams in the SEC. And I think that the SEC has really prepared us for the NCAA Tournament, with a lot of teams getting into the field from the SEC, so I think that gives us confidence going into it.

“But who we have in the locker room, with our team and our staff, I believe in them, and I know they believe in me.”

Maria M. Cornelius, a senior writer/editor at MoxCar Marketing + Communications since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press.