Tech women win, honor Yow

To Georgia Tech forward Iasia Hemingway, Kay Yow was more than a basketball legend.

Yow, the longtime N.C. State coach who died Jan. 24 after a decades-long fight with breast cancer, made an indelible impression on Hemingway when she was being recruited out of New Jersey.

Sunday, at their game against N.C. State, the Hemingway and the Jackets honored the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame coach and others fighting breast cancer.

Through a variety of fund-raising efforts, the team raised more than $4,000 for the Kay Yow/Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Cancer Fund. The Jackets gave pink roses to N.C. State players and coaches before the game. They held a moment of silence in Yow’s honor. Hemingway paid her own homage in Tech’s 67-54 win at Alexander Memorial Coliseum.

“When I first heard about [Yow’s death], it was just so hard to believe it,” she said. “And coming into the game, the first thing I said was, ‘I got you, Coach Yow. I’m not playing for y’all, but I’m going to give you my all, just like you gave women’s basketball your all.”

Hemingway kicked in 12 points and six rebounds in 23 hard-nosed minutes. Freshman center Sasha Goodlett poured in a career-high 20 points.

Said Goodlett, “I felt like, coming in the game today, the biggest thing I could give to [Yow] was my all, was my heart. And that’s what I felt like I did.”

For its second annual “Pink Zone” game, Tech put aside the white and gold to play in pink, the color of breast cancer awareness. N.C. State’s players wore pink shoes and their home whites with pink piping, each jersey bearing Yow’s name on the back.

In the stands, perhaps half of the fans wore pink. At halftime, booster club members handed out carnations to breast cancer survivors in the stands. Fans bought pink T-shirts, visors and ribbons from the team’s booster club.

“It’s like they can’t buy enough pink stuff,” said booster club president Maureen Weidner, herself an eight-year breast cancer survivor.

Said Tech coach MaChelle Joseph, “We always talk about our program being bigger than basketball, and today we definitely knew that this game was bigger than basketball, bigger than between the lines out there.”

The Jackets raised their record to 5-4 in the ACC and 17-6 overall. The Wolfpack dropped to 9-14 overall and 1-7 in the league. With two more league wins in the final five, Tech likely will wrap up a third consecutive NCAA tournament berth.

In addition to Goodlett, Tech got a big boost from freshman point guard Metra “Me-Me” Walthour, who made her first career start, playing a team-high 34 minutes and handing out a team-high four assists.