A year can do a lot for a program.
In Shawn Poppie’s first season as head coach, elation would probably be the word that best described the reaction for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball program when its coaches and players saw the team’s name go across the screen during the selection show for the NCAA Division I tournament.
After all, the Mocs had won just seven games the season before.
“It took a long time to convince them that they were better than they thought,” Poppie said Sunday of last season.
So it was a celebration when the Mocs saw their name matched up against Virginia Tech, which would mean a return for Poppie to Blacksburg, Virginia, to face the Hokies, his former employer when he was an assistant before leaving to become a head coach.
But this season, winning was the expectation. So while a second Southern Conference championship under Poppie was celebrated, with the Mocs sweeping the league’s regular-season and tournament titles this time, this team is different because it feels it can win — no matter how difficult the opponent is.
And there’s no question this year’s opponent, despite some familiarity to UTC, will be difficult.
The Mocs (28-4), a No. 14 seed, will face No. 3 seed North Carolina State of the Atlantic Coast Conference in the first round of the NCAA tournament at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Raleigh. ESPNU will televise the game.
Also in the same four-team group for the first- and second-round pairings next weekend at N.C. State is eight-time NCAA champion Tennessee (19-12) of the Southeastern Conference, a No. 6 seed that will face No. 11 seed Green Bay (27-6), which won the Horizon League tournament. Those teams meet at noon on ESPN.
“There’s just a lot more pieces this year,” Poppie said. “I think that gives you a little more confidence.
“When you win a championship, you bring a lot of those players back and then they see the talent we put around them. We came into June thinking we were pretty good; we just had to piece it together.”
The Wolfpack (27-6) are led by former UTC coach Wes Moore, who coached the Mocs from 1998 to 2013 while collecting 358 wins and nine NCAA tourney appearances. One of his starters is former East Hamilton standout Madison Hayes, who is in her third season with the Wolfpack — she played her freshman season at Mississippi State before transferring — and averaged career highs in points (11.1), rebounds (7.1) and 3-point shooting (42%) while starting all 33 games.
So it will be a challenge, but the Mocs feel ready. One of the teams they beat during the regular season, Kent State, won the Mid-American Conference and made the 68-team field for the NCAA tournament. Two of the Mocs’ four losses came against tournament-bound teams with respectable results, Marshall and Richmond.
The Mocs also won at home against the SEC’s Mississippi State, which will play in the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament, another postseason national event.
“All throughout the season, it’s been confidence builder after confidence builder, and we’ve been trying to learn from experiences,” UTC junior guard Addie Porter said. “We know at the end of the season, this is what we’re going to be playing for. We’ve had this in the back of our mind, knowing that this is the end goal, and we’re just trying to use that to prepare us along the way.”
Tennessee has had some struggles this season, but the Lady Volunteers remain the only program in NCAA history to never miss the national championship tournament.
It’s also worth noting that fifth-year Lady Vols head coach Kellie Harper, a former Tennessee player, was the head coach at N.C. State from 2009-13, making one NCAA tournament before being fired and replaced by Moore. Harper was an assistant at UTC from 2001-04.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.