SEATTLE — Throughout this historic season for the Virginia Tech women’s basketball program, coach Kenny Brooks has repeated his view that Elizabeth Kitley is the best player for the Hokies, but Georgia Amoore is the most important.
It was proven again Saturday, with Amoore carrying Virginia Tech to a level of the NCAA tournament it had never reached before.
Amoore scored a career-high 29 points, and the top-seeded Hokies advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time in program history with a 73-64 win over No. 4 seed Tennessee.
“I just want to win. All we have to do is keep winning to get people to talk about us, so we’ll keep trying to win,” Amoore said.
The Hokies (30-4) won their 14th straight game overall and advanced to a matchup with No. 3 seed Ohio State (28-7) in the Seattle 3 Region final Monday night. Ohio State topped 11-time national champion Connecticut in Saturday’s first semifinal at the site, ending the Huskies’ streak of 14 straight Final Four appearances.
Amoore and the Hokies used a dominant stretch spanning the end of the second quarter and beginning of the third that built enough of a cushion to hold off Tennessee’s valiant rally over the final 12 minutes.
Amoore attempted 19 3-pointers in the Hokies’ second-round win, a 72-60 victory against South Dakota State, but shot only 14 this time around.
“She’s only doing now what we see all the time. When the kids have to go out and guard her, they really tighten up their shoestrings because they know that there’s something that can happen,” Brooks said. “But she’s phenomenal. She’s as good as anybody in the country, in my opinion. She’s playing with the utmost confidence, and she’s been playing like this ever since we really started this stretch.”
Kayana Traylor added 14 points for the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament champions and Kitley scored 12 despite sitting out a big chunk of the first half with foul trouble. The Hokies had reached the Sweet 16 only once before and are now one win away from the Final Four.
“I’m just so happy that I landed at such an amazing spot where we did exactly what we wanted to,” Kitley said. “And it hasn’t been easy, and it’s taken coach Brooks a few years, but what he’s done with the program and the amount of time is incredible.”
Jordan Horston led Tennessee (25-12) with 17 points, and she also had four rebounds, three assists, three steals and a block. Rickea Jackson scored 15 points and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds, and Jordan Walker added 12 points with six rebounds and three steals.
The Lady Volunteers reached the regional semifinals for the second straight season, but the eight-time NCAA champions haven’t been to the Elite Eight since 2016. And it was their offense, so impressive in the first two rounds as they posted 45-point wins against both Saint Louis and Toledo, that disappeared against the Hokies.
“I felt like we were locked in and focused before the game,” Walker said. “We had good energy in warmup, so nothing with that. But we just were a little stagnant on the offensive end.”
The Lady Vols scored 95 points in their first-round win over Saint Louis and followed up with 94 in an impressive blowout of Toledo. But they relied too much on perimeter shots early on against Virginia Tech, to the point coach Kellie Harper yelled at her team “Who are we?” after attempting their 12th 3-pointer of the first half.
Tennessee shot just 3-of-17 from beyond the arc against the Hokies after going 11-for-22 in the win over Toledo.
“They did a good job with our first attack, and we got really impatient,” Harper said. “I thought we were really stagnant offensively, and therefore we were settling. We took way too many 3s for us in the first half.”
The Hokies closed the first half with a flourish, scoring the final eight points to take a 35-22 lead into the break. Amoore started the second half with her fourth 3-pointer of the game, Kitley scored on the interior, and quickly a five-point game ballooned to a 40-22 Virginia Tech lead.
Tennessee trimmed its deficit to nine by the end of the third quarter and its surge continued into the fourth. The Lady Vols capped the 19-4 run with Jasmine Powell’s 3-pointer with 6:05 left and pulled within 53-52.
But turnovers and fouls started to mount for the Lady Vols, and Virginia Tech pushed its lead back to 11 on Amoore’s jumper with 2:10 remaining.
“It was a challenge. I’m glad we pulled away from it,” Amoore said. “It’s what we’re going to see with Ohio State with their press. Glad we got a little taste of it today. Now we know.”
The Lady Vols started the season with a top-five ranking, struggled early while trying to figure out their lineup against a tough schedule, but reached the Southeastern Conference title game before losing to reigning national champion South Carolina. They won their two NCAA tournament games in Knoxville to earn the trip to Seattle.
Harper said it was tough to walk into the locker room Saturday “and see the tears and know that this season’s over.”
“They believed that they could be something special, and I’m proud of them for that,” she said. “I’m proud of them for coming back to practice every single day willing to get better and willing to fight, and they did. We’re sitting here with back-to-back Sweet 16 opportunities because of that, because of their belief.
“You want to keep playing, right? Everybody does. But it’s been a special group for us to coach, and that’s why it hurts.”