DALLAS — This Final Four is a first for Virginia Tech and coach Kenny Brooks, and he’s set to match wits with a counterpart who beat him by 42 points the last time the two met in March Madness.
LSU coach Kim Mulkey won three national championships in four trips to the Final Four with Baylor, but she doesn’t have the bevy of veterans carrying a No. 1 seed into a national semifinal Friday night.
That would be Brooks’ bunch.
“The No. 1 seed means we belong here,” he said.
The seventh-year Hokies coach might not have been thinking that two years ago after a 90-48 loss to Mulkey and the Bears in the second round.
But Georgia Amoore is a confident junior now, not the freshman who said she was shaking when Baylor’s DiDi Richards gave her a fist bump to try to boost the young Australian’s spirits after the rout.
And Elizabeth Kitley is a dominant senior, Virginia Tech’s all-time leader in points and double-doubles who’s preparing for a high-profile showdown with LSU post player Angel Reese.
“To play against them taught us a lot,” Amoore said. “They were a mature group. They were a confident group. I think it’s translating now because we’re mature and confident and we’re playing on this stage that they did.”
Things are quite different for Mulkey, too. Not long after that game against the Hokies, Mulkey left after 21 seasons at Baylor to lead the flagship school in her home state.
The decorated Louisiana Tech point guard immediately ended LSU’s three-year tournament drought with a 26-win season before this season’s 32-2 run. The Tigers are where the Bears frequently were.
“I’m the only one in our locker room that has done this, but I’m not going to shoot, dribble, pass, guard any of them,” Mulkey said. “So it’s not a matter of what I have done.”
The Hokies (31-4) are on a 15-game winning streak, matching the longest under Brooks from his first 15 games in 2016-17.
“Because of the name on the front, because it hasn’t had a history like a Tennessee or a UConn had, people are really quick to doubt you,” Brooks said. “Our kids have seen that. I love the way they’ve handled it. They’re not angry like, ‘We’re going to prove you wrong.’ They’re so confident in themselves, ‘OK, we’re going to prove ourselves right.’ We know how good we are.”