Adams: Cut from the same cloth

Throughout the regular season, the first-year head coach held individual workouts on Tuesday. She wasn't about to change now.

"Shoot quicker" she emphasized as the Lady Cats took turns shooting over 6-foot-7 post player Jon Harper, Kellie's husband and assistant coach.

They're preparing their 16th-seeded Lady Cats to play taller, quicker and No. 1-seeded Tennessee in the first round of the NCAA women's tournament on Sunday night at Thompson-Boling Arena.

Western Carolina and UT are about 125 miles apart. They're not nearly that close in women's basketball.

The Lady Catamounts, who won the Southern Conference tournament as a No. 6 seed, have never played in an NCAA tournament. The Lady Vols have won six national championships.

No one appreciates the difference more than Harper, who played on three consecutive national championship teams at UT.

You could still mistake her for a college player as she dribbles the ball between her legs and takes a jump shot. Her face is thinner, framed by straight blond hair but without the French braids she wore as a UT point guard.

She even addressed that in a question-and-answer segment of the Western Carolina media guide.

"Q. As a player, did you ever have a pregame ritual? Has that changed since you made the transition into coaching?

A. I always wore my hair French braided. This ritual did not carry over into my coaching career because quite frankly, it's too much work. That, and it made me look like I was 12."

She's 27, a regular kid in head-coaching circles but only a few days away from an NCAA tournament, just 11 months after she was hired.

Freshman guard Monique Dawson, who signed with Western Carolina before Harper was hired, first heard her new coach was someone named Kellie Harper, a former assistant coach at Chattanooga.

Then, she realized Harper was Kellie Jolly, the point guard with French braids who she watched as a kid. She was "in awe."

Lady Cats senior guard Lori Tanner, who played high school basketball at Bearden, also watched Jolly as a player. A friend of hers was a ball girl for the Lady Vols, and she got free tickets to home games.

"I like her a lot as a coach," Tanner said. "Because of her youth, I think it makes it easier for her to relate to us. We can be friends with her off the court, but we also respect her as a coach."

The Lady Cats call their coach by her first name, just as the Lady Vols call coach Pat Summitt by her first name. As you watch Harper at work, it's natural to look for other similarities between her and her famous college coach.

"When the players were watching the tape of our game with Georgia Southern (for the Southern Conference tournament championship), they said, 'Kellie, you look like Pat.' I didn't see that, though.

"I would love to be just like Pat Summitt. But it's not my personality. I have to be me."

Harper and Summitt both have enough of a Southern drawl to remind you they're Tennessee natives. And people have told Harper that the hoarser she gets, the more she sounds like her former coach.

Harper doesn't have "the Summitt stare," but her players marvel at her calmness in the heat of a close game. It's a virtue that Summitt helped reinforce.

Harper looked cool, even stoic, as a UT point guard. But she didn't always feel as composed as she looked.

"There were moments when I was very anxious," Harper said. "I can remember coming to the bench and Pat would say, 'This is what we're going to do.' Just like that.

"Her calmness came over the team. She was remarkable down the stretch of a close game."

Harper and Summitt have exchanged phone messages congratulating each other on their NCAA tournament bids, and Harper expects Summitt to meet her team Friday. "I want them (her players) to know where I came from," she said.

But don't get the idea Sunday night's late game will be one big warm, fuzzy reunion.

Harper is a former insider. She knows how single-minded the Lady Vols are about these tournament ventures. She knows they aren't preparing to play a 16th-seeded team; they're preparing to win a national championship.

"We never overlooked our first-round opponent," Harper said. "Pat told us it was March, and anything could happen. We were so focused."

Her husband and father both know what the Lady Cats are up against.

Ken Jolly, Kellie's father, was an outstanding basketball coach at White County High School in Sparta. She's not sure if he will be in the stands Sunday.

"He loves me so much," she said with a smile. "He can't stand to see me lose."

Jon wasn't excited about the first-round pairing, either.

"I would have rather played someone else," he said. "Regardless of UConn winning three consecutive national championships, Tennessee is the program."

Jon and Kellie coached against UT as Chattanooga assistant coaches last year, but that wasn't his introduction to Lady Vols basketball. He was a manager on Auburn's women's team when Harper played at UT. They met when Jon came to Knoxville to work one of Summitt's summer camps.

They hit it off right away, began dating and were married after Kellie graduated from UT.

"It's awesome (working together)," Jon said. "People don't understand. They say, 'How can you work with your wife?' If we didn't work together, we would never see each other (during the season)."

When Kellie was an assistant coach at Auburn, Jon was a high school basketball coach. In the off-season, they agreed to share their leisure time. So Jon tried horseback riding, which Kellie has done since she was a child, and Kellie joined her husband on the golf course.

"I don't have the patience for golf," Kellie said. But at least, she never fell out of the golf cart.

One of their horseback rides ended with Jon in the hospital. He suffered a concussion when he fell off his horse.

The fallen rider didn't give up on horses, and the impatient golfer will still accept an invitation to a scramble. But they're more comfortable and complementary at work.

"It was a dream come true to get to work together," Kellie said.

The dream got better this week. The first-year head coach and her husband are going to the Big Dance together.

But you couldn't tell it Tuesday. It was just another day of practice in preparation for the next opponent, even though the next opponent is like nothing the Lady Cats have experienced.

"Our players understand the program at Tennessee," Kellie said. "They understand there will be a lot of orange in the building and that they will go up against size and speed they have not seen all year.

"I don't want my girls to be intimidated. I don't think they will be."

Neither will their coach.

The realist in her knows the odds. The competitor in her says, "I expect to win every game."

Remind you of anyone?