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.....Will it be Pat's last game?  Sad to think.

Terribly sad.  Its really overwhelming to think about.

I hope she retires and enjoys the rest of her life as much as possible. If she wants to return then by all means let her.

Have to think that was probably it for Pat.  Even if she came back next season, she'd pretty much be starting from scratch with the loss of this big senior class.  Why subject herself to a rebuilding project at this point in her life?

My pick for her replacement is Matthew Mitchell at UK.  He's young, he's a Pat protege, and he's done an amazing job building that program up from practically nothing.

Sadly,I think that's the last game Pat will have been to as Coach. I think Holly Warlick will be the Coach of the LadyVols in 2012-2013.

I'm not a fan of giving the job to Holly.  Jmho.

In making this hire, Hart needs needs to have the attitude of "If I could have anyone I wanted, who would it be?".  Because for all practical purposes, he CAN have anyone he wants.  This is the best job in the sport, at any level, college or pro.  And there's no shortage of coaches out there who played and/or coached under Pat Summit, if that matters (and it should). 

Basically, there's no excuse for not getting this hire right.  If for some reason Hart fails here, it wouldn't bode well for when he has to make hires in other, higher revenue sports. 

This will be IMO a similar situation to UCLA after the 1974-1975 season giving the Head Coaching job to Gene Bartow after John Wooden retired.

Overall I think your opinion on Warlick will not be borne out.  There are some issues that Hart will have to candidly discuss in regards to Warlick even though she has been a long time assistant.  In no particular order I think the following coaches will be the first tier considered for the UT job when Pat decides to hang it up.

(1)  Warlick
(2)  DeMoss
(3)  Caldwell
(4)  Jolly-Harper

As to Warlick I think she has some personal things that might make a parent leary of sending a player to play for her as a head coach.  DeMoss has been a head coach before and was instrumental in UK hiring Mitchell to replace her, but I wonder if she would want the pressure of being a head coach again.  Caldwell is a very feasible choice since she has proven she can recruit and "coach them up" but she might not want to move if the change happened after this year.  Jolly-Harper is a pretty good coach but she has not won as much as Caldwell has.  Overall there are some things that point to this four.  Mitchell btw is being pushed by Adams but I don't think he is the person to be coaching the Lady Vols.  He has never ever won the SEC Tournament and his teams seem to whittle down a lead till they have to pull it out of their butts at times and also lose focus quite easily.  When UK played UT here Mitchell was in over his head against the Lady Vols and had called three timeouts before the game was 20 minutes old!!

And what might those personal things be?   If a parent was leery of sending their child to play for her as a head coach, why wouldn't they be leery of sending their child to play for her as an assistant?

Because a parent would have had Pat Summitt there to be a "buffer".  I am not saying I care about her "issues" in certain segments of the population in any way shape form or fashion.  I respect her for her coaching and honor and loyalty to Pat and the program, but that being said there are others out there that might not be amenable to "issues" in the eyes of certain segments of the population.

I seriously doubt that Pat Summitt would hire a person that would be so potentially detrimental to the program that it would require Pat to serve as a buffer between her and her players.  That is nonsense.