AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Tennessee head basketball coach1/7/2024 ![]() “Every now and then, when I’m trying to get our players focused and trying to get them locked in, I can point up there and say, what we’re doing right now doesn’t look like that. ![]() “I feel like I can hear her talking to me.”īack in Knoxville, the treasures from the Summitt reign are impossible to miss, starting with the eight national championship banners hanging from the ceiling at Thompson-Boling Arena. Then she pauses and the next words are softer. She’d probably tell me, `you’ve got to keep working.’ Very blunt, this is how it has to be.” I believe she would be really proud of this program. But I do think about it often, I wonder what she would think. “I’m not a big fan of that because I can’t answer that,” she says. Through all that, know what question she hears so often? 5 and have beaten three ranked opponents. On this afternoon, the Lady Vols are 15-1, ranked No. Now she is back at her alma mater and in her third season of what she wants to be a revival of the true Tennessee. She has gone from there to become a coach, a wife, a mother. Harper was part of three Summitt national champions in the 1990s, a point guard for a team that went 39-0, scoring 20 points in the title game. I can say that first hand because I’ve lived it.” There are more eyes on you, there’s a lot of expectation. We’ve got to continue to carry that torch. I’ve told (her players) that we have an accountability to women’s basketball to be good. “For years you’d go to the Final Four and there was going to be a lot of orange there, whether Tennessee was there or not. Not just for our alums and our community, but all of college basketball,” Harper is saying. ![]() “I think it’s important for women’s basketball that Tennessee is good. RANKINGS: Tennessee jumps high in latest Power 10 March has never looked quite right, though, without Tennessee on the main stage. Other royalty - Connecticut, Stanford, South Carolina, et. The orange machine that turned up in 28 of the first 35 Elite Eights has not made it past the first weekend of the tournament since 2016. The program that produced eight national champions and 18 Final Fours has not seen either of those for 13 years. Still good, mind you there have been 39 women’s NCAA tournaments and all 39 included the Lady Volunteers. But Summitt is gone now - losing her battle with Alzheimer’s in 2016 - and Tennessee basketball has ebbed from the truly elite. She was once Kellie Jolly, another face in the seemingly endless parade of Tennessee players that Summitt used to make the Lady Vols the gold standard of the game. This little tidbit for instance: In the quiet moments, when the demands of restoring the aura of Tennessee women’s basketball grow heavy, Kellie Harper sometimes listens for the voice of Pat Summitt. The Tennessee Lady Volunteers are going through their shoot-around for the game that night, and off to the side, their coach is trying to describe her world. It is early Thursday afternoon and the Memorial Gym court at Vanderbilt is full of orange.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |