RALEIGH, N.C. — There won't be many introductions needed between three of the four women's basketball programs playing NCAA tournament first-round games Saturday at North Carolina State.
Tennessee coach Kellie Harper has brought her Lady Volunteers to the venue where she once coached, though she noticed differences right way at a remodeled Reynolds Coliseum. N.C. State is the host team under Wes Moore, holding the No. 3 seed in the Portland 4 quadrant of the bracket.
But before there's any juicy matchup between coaches who once worked on the same staff, there are other matters to handle.
The sixth-seeded Lady Vols (19-12) will tangle with No. 11 seed Green Bay (27-6), which is in its 47th consecutive winning season — second in NCAA history behind only Tennessee's 54 — in the early matchup at noon on ESPN. Then the host Wolfpack (27-6) will face the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (28-4), a No. 14 seed, at 2:30 p.m. on ESPNU. The meeting with the Mocs will be a reunion for Moore with the program he coached for 15 seasons from 1998 to 2013.
"I've actually not been back to Raleigh in 11 years," said Harper, who is in her fifth season leading her alma mater after spending the prior six seasons at Missouri State. "Obviously the coliseum looks different. It looks amazing. Just being back brings back a lot of memories — a lot of great people, some really good times.
The former Lady Vols point guard, who as a player helped Tennessee to three of its eight NCAA titles under Pat Summitt, had a four-year stint as N.C. State's head coach after the death of Kay Yow, a member of both the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame. Harper led the Wolfpack to the 2010 NCAA tournament in her first year, but she couldn't get traction into building a consistent winner and was fired in 2013.
The job then went to Moore, who had worked under Yow and had Harper on his staff at UTC before she spent five seasons as head coach at Western Carolina. It's just one example of how the familiarity also runs deep for Moore this weekend.
"I still know a lot of people in the administration and all there," he said of UTC. "They gave me an opportunity to be a head coach at the Division I level."
Moore took the Mocs to the NCAA tourney nine times. He's revered in many ways for his time in Chattanooga.
"He built our program and others," said coach Shawn Poppie, who in two seasons at UTC has added two wins to the Mocs' impressive unbeaten mark in SoCon tournament finals, now at 20-0. "A lot of the banners we get to look at every day, he was a big, big part of that."
Poppie was a Virginia Tech assistant before taking over at UTC, and his time in the Atlantic Coast Conference gave him an idea of what to expect from the Wolfpack.
"The good storyline is that I'm very familiar with not only this arena, but how they've played," Poppie said.
AP photo by Lynne Sladky / N.C. State basketball coach Wes Moore talks with his players, including former East Hamilton standout Madison Hayes (21) during an ACC game at Miami on Jan. 18 in Coral Gables, Fla.Horizon League champion Green Bay doesn't fit cleanly into this reunion theme, but the Phoenix could carve out something memorable for themselves.
"What you will notice about us is we hustle and play together, and we play hard for each other, and a lot of that comes on the defensive end," guard Natalie McNeal said.
Coach Kevin Borseth is in his second go-around with the program. He was at the helm when Tennessee beat Green Bay in the first round in 2016 in Tempe, Arizona, though this will be the first NCAA tourney game for the Phoenix since 2018.
"It's kind of sweet to be back," Borseth said.
Another link: N.C. State senior guard Madison Hayes is from Chattanooga, with the former prep standout for East Hamilton joining the Wolfpack after spending her freshman season at Mississippi State — where the Bulldogs' Southeastern Conference competition included Tennessee. And so this weekend holds added significance for her, too.
"It's really exciting playing against my hometown," Hayes said. "Always used to go to the UTC games, men or women. So it's always cool to see that they're good enough to come here and play in the NCAA this year."
In high school, Hayes played against Jada Guinn, whose average of 19.7 points per game leads the Mocs. The former Oak Ridge standout spent four seasons at Tennessee Tech before joining UTC as a graduate transfer ahead of this season.
"I think it is good that I played against her in high school," Guinn said. "Kind of gives me a feel of how she's going to play."
And then there's Tennessee guard Jewel Spear, whose average of 13.3 points per game is second on the team to Rickea Jackson's 19.4. Spear is in her first season with the Lady Vols after three years with Wake Forest, which made annual trips to face N.C. State in ACC play.
"I also have, like, a lot of family in this area as well, and the North Carolina area," Spear said. "Excited to see them come out. ... It's a great environment here, excited for that again."