Missouri's head coach Kellie Harper had a special relationship with Tennessee's legendary coach Pat Summitt, first as an athlete on the floor, and then as one of the coaches that followed in Summitt's footsteps for the Lady Vols. Harper has always spoken of Summitt with the utmost respect, something that was on full display following the Tiger's 99-68 loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores Thursday night.
The veil of Summitt was present from the beginning: Vanderbilt's head coach Shea Ralph was recruited by Summitt and also grew up with her as a close family friend. (Ralph ultimately played at UConn under head coach Geno Auriemma, and also worked as an assistant coach before heading to Nashville on her own.)
Summitt retired as coach in 2012 after announcing her diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's. She left the program with 1,098 wins, 8 NCAA titles, 18 appearances in the Final Four, and coached for a massive 38 seasons without ever recording a losing season. That kind of history is an important part of the story of women's college basketball — of women's basketball in general — and it's also at risk of being loss, Harper emphasized.
When Summitt died, the world of college basketball "lost the foundation," she said. "But because of her, and because of what she did for women's basketball — she promoted women's basketball and she did not have to ... and I'll be honest with you, a lot of the parity that we ge to see now, she helped build that."
Pat Summitt was a strong advocate for the women's game
Summitt began coaching when she was still a grad student; there are plenty of stories out there about how she would stay at the gym after a game, cleaning up after the crowd and mopping the floor. She drove players to and from matches and spearheaded conversations about equality in the sport. That she is not alive to see the massive leaps the women's game has experienced, from skill level to attendance to NIL, is a genuinely sad reality.
But as Harper and Ralph both noted, the foundation she built is still solid. Though it may feel as if the stories and heroes of the past aren't always front of mind in this day of social media and clicks, the presence of Summitt still looms large — which is the way it should be.
Ultimately, Harper also said, Summitt would love how competitive women's basketball truly is now. While plenty of discussions of parity in 2026 tend to focus on how NIL has changed the game, it's also true that players are just a lot better. That's due in part to their own hard work, the education and growth opportunities that now exist, and also to the long hours coaches like Summitt poured into the game when they didn't have to at all.