Last Saturday Tennessee Tech beat Little Rock 54-46 in the OVC tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to next week’s NCAA tournament. The Golden Eagles wrapped up their 5th straight winning season by clinching the school’s 1st NCAA tourney bid since 2000. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Tennessee Tech coach Kim Rosamond about playing for a Hall of Fame coach during her own college days.
You played basketball at Mississippi: how good a player were you back in the day, and how did you get into coaching? I was a role player who played my role well. Ole Miss was coming off an SEC title and Coach Van Chancellor had that thing rolling. I redshirted as a freshman and bided my time behind some all-conference players. As a 5th-year senior I tore my ACL and had to make a decision: I decided to play and it was extremely rewarding. It was a special time/place in my life. I majored in journalism/advertising and actually ran away from coaching! God kind of shifted my route and opened a door for me. The 3rd assistant coaching spot was a restricted-earnings position but I stepped in at my alma mater at age 23.
What made Hall of Famer Van Chancellor such a great coach, and what was the most important thing that you ever learned from him? He always played his players to their strengths: he was very smart in that sense. I did not realize it as a teenage player but he always put the person before the player: from the meals his wife cooked to the flag football games he hosted in his backyard.
You were the 1st player to be named All-Academic SEC for 4 years in a row: how did you balance your work on the court with your work in the classroom? I grew up on a farm showing horses competitively, which is where I gained my work ethic. My mom was a single mother and after observing her I learned how to out-work people.
You won plenty of NCAA tourney games as an assistant to Stephany Smith at Middle Tennessee and Melanie Balcomb at Vanderbilt: what is the key to winning games in March? Our current team is a great example of this: guard play is so important. Every team that I have been a part of that has made deep runs had great guard play/shooting. In addition to the basketball piece, you need a group of players who love each other so much that they are not ready for their season to be over.
In 2019 as head coach at Tennessee Tech you snapped Belmont’s 47-game OVC winning streak and were named OVC COY: where does that win/honor rank among the highlights of your career? It was a really special time because we did not have a lot of on-court success during my 1st 2 years even though we were winning in the classroom/community/recruiting. We wanted to build not just a team but rather a program so it took a little time. To see things come together in year #3 was extra-special. You want to celebrate every win because it is hard at this level so you never take it for granted: it catapulted us to where we are right now.
Most of your roster is from Kentucky/Tennessee with a few players from some other states: what sort of recruiting philosophy do you have? When we got here there were only 2 players from Tennessee and that is something we knew that we had to change. Tennessee high school basketball is as good as it gets. We started at home and built a lot of strong relationships so we knew that if we kept the top kids at home then we would have a chance. This is a great location because we can stay within a 6-8 hour radius and still find kids to help us win championships.
Your team is top-10 in the nation with 25.3 3P% allowed: how crucial is perimeter defense to your team’s success? When you defend good 3-PT shooters every day in practice, and we have great 3-PT shooters, then you are forced to work to defend the 3 every day. If you had told me that we would win a title while going 0-6 from behind the arc I would not have believed you! Defending and shooting the 3 has been very vital to our success.
Last Saturday in the OVC tourney title game Jada Guinn scored 12 PTS/6-6 FT in an 8-PT win over Little Rock: how on earth were you able to beat a team that only lost 1 conference game all year, and what was the feeling like in your locker room afterward? It is a great example of how we approach losses: we view them as lessons. They manhandled us in the 1st game and we lost our composure at their place. At our place their physicality really bothered us in the 1st half but we scored 26 PTS against them in the 3rd quarter, which I believe is the most they have allowed in a quarter all year. We lost the game but gained confidence and figured out the formula to beat them, which we did last weekend. The locker room was exhilarating/emotional. We did not skip a single step during the past 7 years: it took a winding road to get here but that just made it taste even sweeter. I know how special/rare it is to be a part of March Madness and I want our young women to experience it.
You had a birthday last month: what did you do for the big day? We had a game the very next day against UT-Martin in our regular season finale so we prepared for Senior Day. That is how I have spent my birthday for most of my career!
What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? That is up to the committee. We are happy to be here…but we are not JUST happy to be here. We do not care where we go and I can promise you that this team will not back down from anybody. We will continue to fight for 40 minutes together because we are not ready for this ride to be over.