Sunday afternoon’s 112-40 win for Lady Vols basketball over Winthrop also marked the return of Tennessee legend Semeka Randall Lay. The former UT star is the head coach of the Eagles, and returned to the arena that she helped make history in.
Randall Lay played for Pat Summitt and helped the program earn the 1998 national title. She was one of ‘The Three Meeks’ alongside Chamique Holdsclaw and Tamika Catchings. Now, she’s been leading Winthrop since the 2020-21 season.
After losing to her former school, Randall Lay met with the media. Here’s what she said.
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Opening statement
“Look, always good to come back here. Especially when you’re in the transfer portal, so the majority of my team is new. So it was great to take them to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and obviously play in this game and show them this is my home away from home. As far as the game, game is what it is. Just glad that everybody is healthy, made out of it and obviously, we came in here short-handed. It was no excuse. Tennessee was gonna do what Tennessee should do to us. We’re on to the next game to be honest.”
On her team off to a strong start, what she takes from this game
“If I’ll be frank, we weren’t supposed to have this game. It just ended up happening. Sometimes, things happen, I’ll just put it that way. Yes, we’re off to our best start because of players like the young lady sitting beside me (Madison Ruff). I just appreciate that they don’t make too many of her. I need to clone like four more of her that plays hard on both ends of the floor. She leaves it out there. This game is what it was. Hopefully, it’ll help us get ready. Especially with this week ahead, we’ve got a tough schedule ahead. Finished with you guys, then Charlotte and Virginia. Doesn’t get any more prettier in that sense. We do have this when we get in conference play where we play supposedly the top three teams in a row. We needed this opportunity to kind of get ourselves ready.”
On her team going to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame
“Have to hold them accountable. They don’t know half the people that have contributed to this game. Might have to start doing quizzes in July. We already do quizzes on plays, don’t we?
On what she can take from this matchup for her team
“To be honest, no, I can’t take anything out of this. Honestly, right before the game, we had a different lineup because one of our starters didn’t play. On the fly, we were just trying to make the adjustment. And again, not to make any excuse, cause Tennessee was going to do what Tennessee was going to do to us. We got some kids that are just sick coming from flu, one had Covid that played – coming off of Covid. We just had a lot of funky things going on this past week. We’re just trying to navigate ourself through so we can get our break after the game against Virginia.”
On her thoughts on Lady Vols freshman point guard Mia Pauldo
“Yeah, I got a great deal of respect. You don’t see too many freshmen that come in and play with that charismatic personality and just loves to compete and play. Kind of reminds me of the young lady that I have here (Madison Ruff). I look for great things for her in the future for this program and what she can do to kind of get the old traditional freshmen that get through this system. Her time – hopefully she stays here and grows with this program. Great kid, though. Fun to watch.”
On a story she tells her team about her time with the Lady Vols
“What did I tell them? I don’t know. I think I did shared in the Hall of Fame how I did get suspended here. Everybody knows that story. I just have great memories. Sometimes they come up throughout the course of the year. Even today, just with us making the adjustment a few hours before the game about my experience in the Final Four when Ace went down and Coach probably didn’t say anything to us about making the lineup change, it just happened so fast. I shared that moment with them today and I gave who was going to replace our starter. I just said, hey, we just got to figure it out. Those memories kind of just pop up throughout the course of the season. All the things that Coach had taught us.”
Closing statement
“Arlight, ya’ll. Have a great holiday. Good luck, win some basketball games. Win some championships more important.”
