UK basketball feature

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By Todd Krise, IMG College

M

aybe, it was the dust in the gym. The ache in his feet. Or that knot in his neck.

Whatever it was allowed reality the chance to strike.

And, to his recollection, Matthew Mitchell wasn’t ready to counter.

“I thought I was going to coach the Los Angeles Lakers,” said Mitchell, who at the time was a fresh-out-of-college coach/teacher at Central Holmes Academy in Lexington, Miss.

The 24-year-old version of Mitchell was everything for the small town school’s athletics program. He coached several sports from boys and girls basketball to football to baseball and even golf.

But it was somewhere between driving the team bus and grabbing that last dirty locker room towel, where Mitchell’s highest aspirations took a drastic turn.

“I had to work extremely hard just to be halfway competent,” he said of coaching. “So when you’re having a hard time coming up with a practice plan because you’re a young coach and not sure what to do, you’re not thinking about the bright lights or the big time very much. You’re just trying to get something done.”

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“I had worked at Tennessee, which is a great place. I had worked at Florida, which is a very good place. But there was just something that clicked with me at Kentucky; that Kentucky just became near to my heart.”

— Matthew Mitchell His realization sent him packing on a 16-year trip that only continues to collect speed. Mitchell, 40, enters his fifth season as head coach of the University of Kentucky women’s basketball team on the cusp of turning it into one of the nation’s premier programs.

was something that consumed me from a very early age.”

After graduating from Mississippi State in 1995, Mitchell went to work for his former principal and basketball coach, Farrell Rigby. The Mississippi Private School Coaches Association Hall of Famer was the one who suggested Mitchell should coach and teach at Central Holmes, knowing full well how challenging it would be for his pupil.

“I spoke to the administration,” Rigby said. “The person asked, ‘Can he do the job?’ My answer was, ‘Oh yes, he can do the job. Things will not be stagnant with Matthew Mitchell.’ … I think he’s one of those that just had to have the opportunity to step out somewhere. He was ready to do whatever it took.”

The job required Mitchell to lead both the boys and girls basketball programs. On most days, he would coach the junior high girls team, followed by the varsity girls and ending with the varsity boys.

It was the sport’s fundamentals that engulfed Mitchell and caused him to trek

GROWING UP IN THE RIGHT PLACE Football, like many communities in the South, is king in Winston County, Miss.

And, like many of his friends, Matthew Mitchell gutted it out on the gridiron.

His high school, Winston Academy, has won several state football championships.

Mitchell never experienced that goal, losing deep in the playoffs twice — including a heartbreaker during his sophomore season. It was during that year, however, Mitchell, a multi-sport athlete, found his calling in life.

“I remember thinking in 10th grade that I would enjoy being a basketball coach,” he said. “I was very in love with the game and had a fire for basketball. It

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AT T E N D A N C E U N D E R M I T C H E L L

> UK Hoops Attendance at Memorial Coliseum and Rupp Arena: Year (NCAA Rank)

Games

Total Att.

Avg.

2010-11 (11th)!

15

95,453

6,364!

2009-10 (14th)

17

95,615!

5,624

2008-09 (21st)

17

75,194

4,423

2007-08 (23rd)

18

85,769

4,765

! New School Record

said, describing his UK interview process. “I had worked at Tennessee, which is a great place. I had worked at Florida, which is a very good place. But there was just something that clicked with me at Kentucky; that Kentucky just became near to my heart.”

So on April 27, 2007, athletics director Mitch Barnhart hired Mitchell to lead the UK women’s basketball team. The moment he took over for his predecessor, DeMoss, the elder coach told him something that would change his career forever: “Mickie said, ‘You really got to keep this most recent recruiting class intact.’ She had signed them in the fall and then the coaching change happened. I went on the road and talked to the recruiting class.”

across the entire county and into neighboring sections for help. Fortunately for Mitchell, he had the likes of fellow Louisville, Miss., natives Van Chancellor and Andy Kennedy as inspirations. Chancellor, at the time, was head women’s basketball coach at Ole Miss, going on to lead the WNBA’s Houston Comets and the LSU women’s program.

Kennedy, on the other hand, graduated high school a few years before Mitchell.

He was a local star that went on to play at North Carolina State and professionally.

Kennedy is now the men’s head basketball coach at Ole Miss.

Louisville, a town of approximately 7,000 citizens, also has produced LouisianaLafayette head football coach Mark Hudspeth.

None of these men, though, were as beneficial to Mitchell’s career as current Vanderbilt assistant Kim Rosamond. She and Mitchell, who have known each other since grade school, kept in contact while Rosamond was a basketball player at Ole Miss and Mitchell was a coach at Central Holmes.

Rosamond suggested Mitchell work during the summers at legendary coach Pat Summitt’s camps at the University of Tennessee.

“He was a great player himself,” Rosamond said of Mitchell. “Anything Matt did, he was successful at. He always surrounded himself with people that he can learn from.

“Before you knew it, the entire camp knew him,” she added. “He really made a name for himself there.”

THE DUNLAP EFFECT One player in particular in the 2007 recruiting class was a defensive-minded forward from Nashville, Tenn., named Victoria Dunlap. Not heavily recruited, Dunlap quietly scored 12 points and eight rebounds per game as a high school senior. For her, Mitchell and UK were an easy sell.

“Knowing we were players from under Mickie DeMoss, he didn’t try to come in and drastically change the whole program,” she said. “He had his vision and he (stuck to it).”

Dunlap, like the rest of the team, struggled to find consistency during Mitchell’s first two years at Kentucky. The squad compiled a 33-32 record with no NCAA appearances. It was then that Mitchell decided to use his athletic roster to his advantage and adopted a more up-tempo style of play heading into his third year.

Dunlap might have benefitted the most, leading the team in almost every statistical category and becoming the program’s first SEC Player of the Year and just the second State Farm/WBCA All-American. The team went 28-8 and finished one win away from the 2010 NCAA Women’s Final Four.

In 2010-11, the Wildcats fought back against high expectations and a season-ending injury to starting point guard Amber Smith to finish 25-9 and appeared in a second straight NCAA tournament. Dunlap again was named the conference’s player of the year and finished her career as one of the most herald players in UK Hoops history. She also became the school’s first WNBA first-round pick last summer.

“You could just see her confidence blossom,” Mitchell said. “There was no question that her play was such a huge part of this program’s resurgence. I would never be able to thank her enough for elevating our program and helping us to become a team that has a chance now to really become one of the teams recognized nationally as having one of the top programs. I don’t know how close we were to doing that when she was a freshman.”

At the beginning of August, Matthew and Jenna Mitchell welcomed a daughter,

GETTING THE KENTUCKY JOB Farrell Rigby said Mitchell’s personality has taken him a long way, which is true considering how Mitchell turned that Tennessee summer job into a productive career. Stops have included a three-year stint at Florida under Carol Ross and Carolyn Peck; a two-year swing as Mickie DeMoss’ top assistant at Kentucky; and also his first head coaching job at Morehead State from 2005-07.

Despite his travels, it was the University of Kentucky that stood out from the rest.

“Nobody they were going to talk to wanted to be at Kentucky more,” Mitchell

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MITCHELL BY THE NUMBERS

> The Cats are 30-2 at home over the last two seasons. > With 95,453 fans in 15 home games in 2010-11, UK set a new single-season average of 6,364 fans per game, besting the school-record average of 5,863 set in the 2006-07 season.

> The Cats ranked 11th nationally in average attendance and have been ranked in the top 25 nationally and in the SEC’s top four the past eight seasons.

> UK has won 21 consecutive nonconference games at home. > A season high of 7,646 attended UK’s “WBCA Pink Zone” game vs. LSU. It marked the seventh-largest crowd in Memorial Coliseum history.

> Matthew Mitchell Year-By-Year Year

T H E M I T C H E L L FA M I LY , from left, Jenna, Matthew, Saylor and Lacy.

Saylor, into the world (Matthew’s first daughter, Lacy, is a senior at Mississippi State). As a thank you to Dunlap for her years of unbelievable play, the Mitchells gave Saylor the same middle name as Dunlap: Rose.

“That shows how much I think of her and how much I am appreciative of her,” Mitchell said of Dunlap. “Jenna and I felt — at the time — we wouldn’t have a job here if Victoria didn’t start playing the way she did. I love Victoria Dunlap and she’s a huge part of this program’s success.”

School

Position

Record

NCAA Finish

Age

2010-11 Kentucky

Head Coach

25-9

(NCAA Second Round) 40

2009-10 Kentucky

Head Coach

28-8

(NCAA Regional Final) 39

2008-09 Kentucky

Head Coach

16-16

38

2007-08 Kentucky

Head Coach

17-16

37

2006-07 Morehead St. Head Coach

14-16

36

2005-06 Morehead St. Head Coach

16-13

35

Total After First Six Seasons

116-78

> Pat Summitt Year-By-Year Year

FUTURE OF UK HOOPS In November 2010, Matthew Mitchell signed a five-year contract extension worth $3 million, plus additional performance-based incentives. Mitchell’s continued growth as a head coach, his roster’s improved talent and the increased numbers in attendance, all signal that the Kentucky women’s basketball program is heading into unchartered waters.

He’s also raising the bar in recruiting; attracting players to Kentucky that normally would not have given the Wildcats a look before.

“We’ve always recruited those players,” Mitchell said. “I just think we have a realistic chance of landing some of the best players in the country. A lot of people think that Connecticut and Tennessee and those kinds of schools have the inside track.

Maybe they do, but I think right now, from where I see, people are willing to listen to Kentucky.”

But where does Mitchell and his team take this newfound success? How do they turn SEC title game defeats into wins? How do NCAA Elite Eights turn into Final Fours?

“When all that comes together, when we get high-character kids that play extremely hard and who want to put Kentucky before themselves, I think championships are possible,” Mitchell said. “Everybody is out there trying to win one. We are definitely. But I just think — when I look at — that it’s not a pipe dream. It’s something that can happen here.”

Reality beware.

School

Position

Record

NCAA Finish

Age

1979-80 Tennessee

Head Coach

33-5

(NCAA Final Four)

27

1978-79 Tennessee

Head Coach

30-9

(NCAA Final Four)

26

1977-78 Tennessee

Head Coach

27-4

(1st AIAW Poll)

25

1976-77 Tennessee

Head Coach

28-5

(NCAA Final Four)

24

1975-76 Tennessee

Head Coach

16-11

23

1974-75 Tennessee

Head Coach

16-8

22

Total After First Six Seasons

150-42

> Geno Auriemma Year-By-Year Year

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School

Position

Record

NCAA Finish

Age

1990-91 Connecticut Head Coach

29-5

(NCAA Final Four)

36

1989-90 Connecticut Head Coach

25-6

(NCAA Second Round) 35

1988-89 Connecticut Head Coach

24-6

(NCAA First Round)

1987-88 Connecticut Head Coach

17-11

33

1986-87 Connecticut Head Coach

14-13

32

1985-86 Connecticut Head Coach

12-15

31

Total After First Six Seasons

121-56

34