Pat Summitt is one grand coach

KNOXVILLE — There are a million reasons why Pat Summitt is respected by sports fans. On Thursday, 1,000 reasons were enough.

The legendary Tennessee Lady Vols coach hit a milestone never reached in NCAA basketball history, after her team pummeled Georgia 73-43 at Thompson-Boling Arena. Summitt reached the never-scaled peak of 1,000 career victories, adding to an already monumental list of remarkable accomplishments.

“Wow,” Summitt said. “We’ve got the greatest fans in women’s basketball. I want to thank the administration for making the commitment to women’s basketball here before it was popular.”

Summitt, 56, is now an astounding 1,000-187 in 35 years at UT.

“One thousand wasn’t our main focus,” said UT forward Alex Fuller. “We knew it was going to happen and we knew we were going to get it tonight. Our goal was to come together as a team.”

That they did. And it was clear for most of the second half that the milestone would be reached. A celebration started to be sensed.