The Lady Vols had no steely-eyed stare or orange pant suit on the sideline Sunday afternoon, but even without legendary coach Pat Summitt, Tennessee looked like Tennessee in a rare visit to Georgia Tech.
As much of a coup as it was for the No. 22 Yellow Jackets to get Tennessee to campus for the first time since 1988 – and only the second time ever - it turned into an even bigger coup for new Vols coach Holly Warlick, who got her first career coaching victory with a 71-54 win.
Tech debuted at the new McCamish Pavilion in front of the fifth-largest crowd ever to watch a Tech women’s game. Close to half of the 5,517 there were Vols fans excited to see Warlick’s first win after 27 years as Summitt’s top assistant.
“It feels great because I was thinking, ‘When am I going to get a win?’ Warlick said afterward with a smile.
The 20th-ranked Volunteers had been stunned in their season-opener Friday night in an 80-71 loss at Tennessee-Chattanooga, a first to their neighbors to the southwest since 1973.
“(Summitt) put her arm around me after Friday night’s game and was kind of doing what I used to do to her,” Warlick said. “‘We’re going to be OK.’”
Summitt, now Tennessee’s coach emeritus after resigning last April with early-onset dementia, attended Friday’s game but was not in Atlanta Sunday because of a previous engagement.
It marked the first time in 39 years the Lady Vols played without the all-time winningest basketball coach in NCAA history in the building. She couldn’t resist calling Warlick 30 minutes before the tip Sunday though.
“I wouldn’t answer anybody else’s call but Pat Summitt,” said Warlick, who now has one win to Summitt’s 1,098. “She was obviously giving me some encouragement, just (to) go out and do what I do best.”
Warlick had preached energy and got it, as Tennessee opened up a 15-point lead at halftime. Georgia Tech used a 13-0 run in the first five minutes of the second half to cut the Lady Vols’ lead to two, 45-43, but then Tech went silent.
The Yellow Jackets were outscored 18-0 over the next eight and a half minutes and the game was all but over.
“We didn’t ever establish an inside game,” Tech coach MaChelle Joseph said. “I’ve been talking about it all preseason: you have to play with a certain amount of toughness on the inside. Obviously tonight we did not do that. Outside of Ty Marshall we didn’t have a lot of toughness out there.”
Marshall led the Yellow Jackets with 18 points, and guard Dawn Maye added 12. Outside of those contributions from Tech’s only returning starters, Sydney Wallace was the other Yellow Jacket close to double-digits (eight points), and she spent much of the first half on the bench with two fouls.
Tech is young on the inside, but so is Tennessee. And freshman forward Bashaara Graves led the Lady Vols with 18 points and 12 rebounds. She was one of two freshmen Tennessee started along with Buford graduate Andraya Carter, who had four assists and only one turnover in 36 minutes at point guard.
Carter was happiest, though, about what the team did for the coach they call “Holly.”
“We didn’t make her look like a good coach on Friday,” Carter said. “Tonight we made her look like the coach that she is. We made her look like she deserves this job because she does. She motivated us, she pushed us, she gave us the energy to start. She had confidence in us. I couldn’t be happier for us.”
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