Harper all business in facing her former team
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Linnae Harper has been fairly evenkeeled in discussing her former team but said Saturday there are a few “strange” components of returning to Lexington, Kentucky.
The Ohio State junior, who spent two years at Kentucky — the Buckeyes' opponent today in a second-round NCAA Tournament game — said there was “a little nervousness” playing Friday at Memorial Coliseum against Western Kentucky.
She reiterated Saturday what she said moments after Ohio State (27-6) learned its destination on Selection Monday: Reunions are fun, but on the court, “it’s business.”
For all the seriousness of an NCAA Tournament setting, it still doesn’t make it any less bizarre to read scouting reports on her former teammates, including Kentucky senior guard Makayla Epps, her roommate for a year.
“It’s strange to see,” Harper said. “Especially once being on the opposite end, it’s different, but at the end of the day, it’s just business and we have to focus as a team and just listen to what our coaches are telling us for the game plan and just try to execute as much as possible.”
In professional sports, trades and free-agent signings make homecomings and reunions a regular occasion. In college sports, particularly in situations involving out-ofconference transfers, they’re rare.
Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff has been a Division I coach for 15 years and said, “I can’t remember a time when that has happened, actually,” of a player of his facing a former team.
McGuff said Harper — the Big Ten sixth player of the year and a key rebounder — remains focused on the team but added he’d be naïve to expect Harper’s return to Kentucky (22-10) to be without emotion.
“I’ll talk to her before that but just to say, ‘Hey, play your game,’ ” McGuff said. “She’s going to play hard because she always does, and she’s going to impact the game in positive ways for us like she always does.”
Junior guard Kelsey Mitchell said, as far she can tell, Harper has enjoyed her return to her former stomping grounds. Harper has taken on the unofficial role of team tour guide, on numerous occasions this week fielding questions of, “Linnae, what’s that?” Mitchell said.
“She’s really having fun telling us where everything is, telling us how (Kentucky men’s basketball coach John) Calipari is, telling us how their team is, and I think (it will be) a really good game for her,” Mitchell said.
Asked about his former player Saturday, Kentucky coach Matthew Mitchell explained how “the good