Back in the salad days of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's basketball, current North Carolina State coach Wes Moore and current Tennessee Lady Vols coach Kellie Jolly Harper were on the same side, Harper assisting Moore's Mocs from the fall of 2001 through the spring of 2004.
It was a pretty sweet partnership while it lasted, UTC winning 78 games and reaching the NCAA tourney all three years.
And their lives have gone pretty well since then, both now running top tier programs, what with N.C. State entering this year's tourney with a No. 1 seed and the Lady Vols receiving a No. 3 seed.
But on Tuesday, only Moore's team advanced to the women's Sweet 16, his Wolfpack overcoming South Florida 79-67 a couple of hours before Harper's Lady Vols turned in a 70-55 clunker against Michigan.
For those with short memories, it was also Moore who replaced Harper at N.C. State following the 2012-13 season after she went 23-39 in Atlantic Coast Conference action and 70-64 overall.
However, that doesn't mean all those Mocs fans who fondly remember Moore's and Harper's time on the UTC bench together shouldn't still be proud of each of them for the way they conduct business both on and off the court in their current jobs.
For one thing, Moore's now in his eighth season at State, so he's had a lot more time to shape his program than Harper's had to mold hers. Moore's won at least 20 games in all but one of those eight seasons and won 25 or more on four separate occasions. As for Harper, who's wrapping up only her second season back atop Rocky Top, guiding the Lady Vols to a No. 3 seed in a year when everyone has had plenty of excuses to perform at far from their best is an accomplishment in itself.
Yet Tuesday's results also show how far apart these programs are at the moment.
Falling behind 36-35 at halftime, Moore's team held South Florida to 3 of 17 shooting in the third quarter and led by double-digits for much of the final half. By game's end, the Wolfpack were comfortably on top of every major stat.
Tennessee head coach Kellie Harper talks to guard Rae Burrell (12) during the second half of a college basketball game against Michigan in the second round of the women's NCAA tournament at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Tuesday, March 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)In one of those down-home assessments he was famous for at UTC, when Moore was asked afterward what advice he gave to Jakia Brown-Turner, who finished with 19, to get her out of a recent slump, he replied, "I told her she'd been a good shooter all her life. Just keep shooting."
Unfortunately for the Lady Vols, shooting is what did them in, especially from the 3-point line, where they clanged 12 of 14 triples, as well as missing at least 11 layups. Particularly cold was the Lady Vols' leading scorer on the season, Rennia Davis, who hit just four of 17 field goals. Then there were the assists. UT was credited with but five. Harper basically averaged five assists by herself as a Lady Vol when the program was winning three NCAA titles during her time there.
Yet to watch Harper coach and her players play on Tuesday was to sense that this eighth defeat against 17 wins was a loss suffered through lack of execution rather than lack of effort, which often seemed to be the culprit during the years of Harper's predecessor, Holly Warlick.
In general, the Vols played well enough defensively to have won this one. They played hard. They just kept firing blanks at the goal and turning the ball over (16) when it mattered most. It happens. And it happened all the time in the final year or two of Warlick, who never seemed at all comfortable attempting to replace the irreplaceable Pat Summitt.
Because of that, not since 2016 have the Lady Vols advanced to the Sweet 16, which was also the last year they reached the Elite Eight. The program with eight total national championships hasn't reached the Final Four since 2008, which was also their last title.
Though Davis's career is done with the Lady Vols, Harper will potentially return nine players off this team, including Rae Burrell, one of its best overall players.
And when next season comes, Harper's 2021-22 team could do worse than embrace the words of Moore after N.C. State's second half charge against South Florida.
"It's good when you can see the ball go through the net," he said. "It helps on the other end of the floor. We tend to play better defense when we're hitting shots."
And when you're doing both of those, you tend to win more games. In Moore's case, the Wolfpack just may do both well enough to win him his first NCAA championship.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.