Tennessee softball is making yet another appearance in the NCAA Tournament and will be hosting the Knoxville Regional this weekend. After learning of their draw, Lady Vols head coach Karen Weekly met with the media on Sunday night to give her instant reaction.
She was asked about the matchup, playing at home in the postseason, hosting a 21st-straight regional and more.
Here’s what she said.
More From RTI: WATCH: Tennessee Softball HC Karen Weekly, Sage Mardjetko React to NCAA Tournament Seeding
On her reaction to the draw
“Just super excited and proud of our girls for doing the work they needed to do this year to earn that top eight seed. There’s always so much anticipation when you go into tonight, because you might have an idea who you’re going to get because of geography, but there’s so many unknowns. It’s a tough regional, but Knoxville always gets a tough regional because of the number of really good programs that can drive here. So we’re kind of used to that. Like I told the team, it’s a brand new season. Nothing we’ve done to this point matters. Be grateful to be one of 64 teams that still gets to play. That’s a huge deal. A lot of people are packing up to go home. 64 teams that are in this playoff are in it because they’re good. Everybody’s good, the game doesn’t know who’s supposed to win, and doesn’t care. And you got to go out there and play it one game at a time in order to survive in advance.”
On how special the moment is to hear her team’s name called
“It’s so special. And I think you see that with our team the way they celebrate. It really doesn’t matter where we’re announced, we’re going to be excited because we’re grateful to be able to be together and to have the opportunity to compete.”
On hosting 21 consecutive regionals
“It’s kind of crazy when you step back and think about it. I tend to think about the minute, the hour of the day in front of me, but when you reflect on that, it’s really just a lot of years of outstanding, outstanding players who are now incredible alums of this program, who love the Lady Vols, who support these girls in so many ways. And that’s what’s kind of neat to look back on is just the many outstanding young women, coaches, staff members who’ve come through here. And it truly takes a village to build something special.”
On not worrying about outside noise, just surviving and advancing
“That’s exactly right, and I think that’s where you just have to flush the season, because there may be things in the season that you weren’t happy with, there may be things you’re really happy with, but neither of those matter. If you had a great year, doesn’t mean you’re going to have a great playoffs. If you struggled this year, doesn’t mean you’re going to struggle in the playoffs. You can be the person that is the big game changer for us. But I think Sage’s point is, right now, it’s win. Just win. Just find a way. It doesn’t matter if you win ugly, as long as at the end of the game you’ve got the W, then you get to move on and keep playing.”
On predicting the teams they’d be matched up with, pulling Virginia
“Because of the teams that are within 400 miles and can drive here, it makes it a little bit easier to predict who we’re going to get, especially when you see who ends up winning in their conference tournaments this weekend. I had a feeling Virginia would be the 2-seed just because of their RPI, and it looked like they would get one of those 2-seeds. Indiana, I didn’t know if they’d bump up into the 2-seed range, and then they’d send them somewhere else, if they stayed as a three, that kind of made sense, again, because of geographic proximity. But, I think if you’re somebody who doesn’t have schools close to you, and you’re going to have a lot of flights, then you have no idea who you’re going to get. But I like the system. I think there’s some regionals that in years past have been pretty light because of geography alone, and other regionals that have been pretty heavy because of it. So I like the fact that at least we’re getting a little bit more parity when it comes to the one and two seeds.”
On postseason play at home
“Every year gets better. I mean, couple years ago, I thought this place can’t be any better, any more rowdy and raucous, and then this year, to see the way people showed up and showed out for midweek games absolutely blew me away. So I know it’s going to be a really tough ticket. I know my phone’s going to start blowing up asking for tickets, and that’s just great. I mean, I love that we’re in that kind of a situation where you wish we had more seats in that stadium, but I know that the Lady Vol fans are going to be out there loud and proud, and believe me, that’s going to make a difference for our girls.”
