Despite my dislike of Tennessee (directed mainly at the football program), I’ve actually grown to like women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt over the years. She’s the winningest college basketball coach of all time (men or women), I believe, with 900+ wins, has 6 national championships, and her Lady Vols are perennial contenders. She is, without question, the greatest women’s coach in the history of the sport (even though Geno Auriemma thinks he is.)

What exactly Summitt has planned for tonight, however, is, by her own admission, “a lot out of character.”

Last month when the #1 Duke team came to Knoxville to play Summitt’s Lady Vols, men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl showed up in the student section, shirtless and painted orange. He had a large “V” painted on his chest, and, along with several of his own players, spelled out “Go Vols.” Summitt appreciated Pearl’s show of support for the women’s team and stated that she would return the favor at a men’s game.

And so, at what is probably Tennessee’s biggest game of the season tonight against Florida in Knoxville, Summitt will do just that. What she has planned is being kept secret, but I doubt, for the sake of decency, she’ll be duplicating Pearl’s gesture. Nevertheless, it should be entertaining. (It might be even more so if insomniac’s scenario were to come to pass. I’d take Summitt in that one.)

As for the game itself, it’s a pretty big game for Florida, too. After losing two of three, and not looking particularly focused the last couple of weeks, the Gators need to get back on the winning track. It’s not uncommon for a team who has a lot of success for a long time (their 17 game win streak) to relax a little. But you don’t want it to last too long, because sometimes it’s hard for a team, even a very talented one, to get completely back on track when that happens. Billy Donovan seems to think a little more passion is what the Gators need. I think he’s probably right.

In their defense, their schedule for the first half of the conference season was a little lighter, and some of their toughest games are stacked up here at the end, so it’s not surprising to see them lose some of these. They’ve played on the road at Kentucky, Vanderbilt and LSU in the last two weeks, and then there’s tonight’s game at Tennessee. Plus, they finish this weekend with Kentucky again. If their tougher games were spread out a little more, the losses wouldn’t look as bad. However, a win tonight would likely stop, or at least slow down, a lot of the questions being asked about them this week.