For the second straight year, the Skyhawk women’s basketball team has made it to the NCAA tournament. For the second straight year it has entered the tourney with a fifteen seed. And for the second straight year, it has been knocked off in the first round.
UTM was bounced from this season’s tournament this past Saturday, Mar. 17 by the Lady Vols 72-49 at the Allstate Arena in Chicago.
After starting the game trailing by five, the Skyhawks went on a 7-0 run to take their one and only lead of the contest with 16:39 left in the first half.
Head Coach Kevin McMillan said that the squad had a game plan going in and they stuck to that plan.
“What we had planned on doing, we did the whole game,” McMillan said. “ We sold out our plan, and that was to control who shot the ball and where they shot from and for the most part we did a good job.”
After falling behind, the Lady Vols came out and asserted their physical dominance on the Skyhawks and never looked back. UT finished the game with ten blocks; eight steals and won the battle on the glass 52-39.
Coach McMillan knew the play was going to be physical prior to the game and instructed his players to initiate contact with the taller Lady Vols.
“The funny thing is that one of our strategies was that we were going to foul their players in the paint,” McMillan said. “We only committed 12. And we were trying to foul. I would hate to see what would happened if we were really trying to foul.”
McMillan said that even though the team was trying to foul, that the fouls were just not being called on either side of the ball.
“But they [Lady Vols] only shot ten free throws. And we only took eight so there was not a lot of fouls called, and if that was the way the game was going to go, we were in trouble,” McMillan said.
Although there are no moral victories in sports, McMillan does believe that there are positives that can be taken from this game.
“If you saw us play last year at Duke, we were a much better team today then we were a year ago today at Duke and I don’t think I’m a better coach, I think those kids are better players, and they were much more into the game and what they had to do,” McMillan said. “Taking things away from this game, Tennessee played three mid-majors all year, and they won every one of them between 30 and 40 points, and here we are, shooting as poorly as we shot, and we played them to 23. We turned the ball over eight times against Tennessee. That is unbelievable that we took care of the ball like we did. So all of those things are unbelievable positives for us.”
Associate head coach for the Lady Vols had nothing but praise for UTM and the Skyhawk women’s basketball program.
“I would like to congratulate UT Martin on just a great year,” Warlick said. “It shows the quality of basketball in the state of Tennessee. My hat is off to them and I hate that we had to play them, but it is what it is.”
Warlick also said that Lady Vols head coach Pat Summit hated having to knock her alma mater out of the tournament, but the competitor in her always wants to win.
“Pat’s a competitor so she plays her mother in checkers and she’s going to want to beat Miss Hazel,” Warlick said. “Pat has a love for UT Martin, but she is a competitor and wants to win. I don’t think it crossed Pat’s mind that we are worried about UT Martin; she was totally focused on us, how we were playing, and what kind of game, and what kinds of things we were doing, really focusing on us today.”
After defeating the Skyhawks, the Lady Vols defeated host DePaul University 63-48 to advance to their 29th Sweet Sixteen appearance in program history. The Lady Vols have competed in 31 consecutive NCAA post-season tournaments.
