KNOXVILLE – The Tennessee Lady Volunteers seem poised to once again be a force in college basketball after falling on some almost unimaginable hard times by the storied program’s standards.
During the past decade-plus, there have been early tournament exits, players transferring and even a coach fired. But a recent Twitter post captured the journey the Lady Volunteers have been on with two pictures.
The first photo shows Pat Summitt, the women’s basketball pioneer who coached Tennessee for 38 seasons and led the program to eight NCAA tournament titles, hugging one of her point guards in uniform during the late 1990s. The second photo shows that same former player, Kellie Harper (formerly Jolly), as coach of the Lady Vols and hugging freshman guard/forward Sara Puckett after Monday night’s home game against Belmont in the NCAA tourney’s second round – a 70-67 victory that secured the team’s first Sweet 16 berth since 2016.
“It’s great as we continue to take steps forward,” Harper said. “It’s where we need to be. We don’t take it for granted. You don’t just get there. … A lot of really talented teams are not going to be there this year. There’s been a lot of parity. Just glad we’re one of them.”
Harper is in her third season as head coach at her alma mater, the only program to play in all 40 NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournaments. The Lady Vols won their most recent national championship in 2008 – four years before Summitt, who died in 2016, stepped away due to Alzheimer’s disease and turned the program over to former player and assistant Holly Warlick – and that was also their most recent run as deep as the NCAA semifinals.