UTC uses UT’s DVD collection

Not long after the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team found out Monday night it was a No. 12 seed in the NCAA tournament, bound for Bridgeport, Conn., and a Sunday first-round game against fifth-seeded Kansas State, assistant coach Mike Murray was on the road headed north.

Murray, in his second season as an assistant with the Lady Mocs after two seasons working with the UTC men’s team, was headed to Knoxville. More specifically, his destination was the Tennessee Lady Vols’ game video vault. Lady Mocs coach Wes Moore and Tennessee coach Pat Summitt are good friends, and Summitt allows UTC access to all the games the Lady Vols have recorded during the season.

“Pat’s been very generous with us in the past,” Moore said. “Mike’s in charge of film and putting all that together. About the best we can do is put the timers on the VCRs and try to record all the games that are shown here in our region.

“Something we may need to look into at some point is having a satellite on top of (McKenzie Arena) so we can reach out a little farther.”

Murray said he got DVDs of four of the 16th-ranked Wildcats’ games this season — UTC (29-3) and Kansas State (21-9) will also swap one game tape — and then quickly headed south, multitasking all the way back to Chattanooga.

“I actually took the DVD player and the laptop (computer) with me and captured one of the games in the car,” Murray said.

Murray returned to McKenzie Arena around 12:30 a.m. and had some video ready and waiting for Moore, who had gone home for a few hours of sleep before coming back to his office at about 5 a.m. The rest of Tuesday was spent studying and breaking down Kansas State and Louisville games; the fourth-seeded Cardinals would likely be UTC’s second-round opponent if the Lady Mocs win.

While the coaches were busy worrying about the game itself, other UTC athletic department staff members were busy coordinating travel plans, media obligations, ticket sales and anything else that needed to be done before the Lady Mocs leave town. The team is scheduled to fly out of Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport on a chartered plane Friday at 9:30 a.m.

Kansas State will leave Manhattan the same day, Wildcats coach Deb Patterson said Tuesday. Patterson, a former Vanderbilt assistant who is in her 12th season at Kansas State, said she already had some of UTC’s televised games recorded but hadn’t yet had much time to watch them.

“In today’s game, any time there is a game on television we can record it because you never know when you might need it,” she said. “From what I’ve seen, (the Lady Mocs are) an excellent basketball team. They’re very impressive for a lot of reasons, and we know we’re going to have to be ready to play.”