My main sadness when any Lady Vol transfers is my sadness for how they'll feel 10, 20 years in the future. Being a Lady Vol For Life is a special gift that few young women ever receive, and to give that up for more playing time at a lesser program may seem reasonable at this point in their lives, but on down the road I would imagine there might be regret for some.
Say, for instance, a born-and-raised Tennessee girl who dreamed her entire young life of becoming a Lady Vol actually gets that chance. That dream comes true and she earns a full scholarship to Tennessee and is on top of the world. This young woman starts off with a bang and becomes a crowd favorite, but over time gets fewer and fewer minutes. After year two the kid decides to transfer halfway across the country for more PT -- and gets it. Yay. That other team doesn't have any more post-season success than Tennessee did in those years. Now fast-forward to today, which is years later. Say the team she transferred to was also in the tourney this season and she's watching from home somewhere in Tennessee as both her first love (Tennessee) is still in it and the other team has gone home.
How does she feel? Does she wish she could be with all the orange-blooded thousands, or did her blood and heart actually change that drastically in the two years elsewhere and she doesn't feel any connection to Tennessee? I know how I'd be feeling.