Marlene Stollings doesn’t have the same fond memories of Texas Tech’s 1993 national title like the fans that were in attendance for her introduction as the Lady Raiders new head coach at the City Bank Room inside United Supermarkets Arena.
Stollings was preparing to head to Ohio State after finishing off a record-breaking high school career in Ohio.
She watched her favorite team fall in the national championship to Texas Tech.
“It’s kind of come full circle and worked out,” Stollings said. “But, yeah, that was a painful day for me.”
25 years later, Stollings is in charge of getting the Lady Raider program back to those heights and said as much during her introductory press conference.
“From the moment I met Kirby (Hocutt) I was sold,” Stollings said. “The reason I was sold was because we share the same vision for this program. A vision of winning again. Winning Big 12 titles again and winning a national championship again.”
Stollings plans to bring a different brand of basketball to the program after leading a Minnesota team that was among the nation’s top scoring and three-point shooting teams last season.
“We love to shoot the three ball,” Stolling said. ” If you look at our games one of our Top 25 wins was a 20-plus point win over Maryland, who was ranked 20th in the country at the time, and I think we had 13 made threes that game.”
Style of play isn’t the only thing Stollings will bring with her from Minnesota.
Nikita Lowry Dawkins, who was an assistant underStollings with the Gophers and VCU, returns to the program where she spent one season as Marsha Sharp’s associate head coach.
