Bearden coach Justin Underwood went from practice player for Pat Summitt to state champion

MURFREESBORO – It has to start with Pat, right?

That's where Justin Underwood's coaching career first started. Not as a coach, but as a practice player from 2001-05 at Tennessee for the Lady Vols and coaching icon Pat Summitt. 

It molded him to the coach he is today.

Right now, he's a high school girls basketball state championship coach.

Underwood coached Bearden to the program's first state championship Saturday, a 52-34 win over Knoxville-rival Farragut in the TSSAA Class 4A state championship game at Middle Tennessee State's Murphy Center. It came in the first all-Knoxville girls basketball state championship game.

Bearden (36-3) is the first Knoxville school to win a state championship in the state's largest enrollment classification.

But back to Summitt, because this is where Underwood's journey started.

BEARDEN BASKETBALL:Bearden girls basketball is in first state championship, but three players have title game experience

"We don't have enough time to talk about that," said Underwood on what he learned from his experience with Summitt. "People said, 'You don't get paid to do that? I said no.'  The amount of knowledge you learned at her practices and being part of her team and everything she did was enough."

He learned invaluable lessons about basketball. He learned firsthand that defense wins championships. That's what he always will remember. 

Bearden showed that defense this week, rolling to its first state championship in program history. The Lady Bulldogs held their three opponents to 41 points a game. That included holding state quarterfinal opponent Blackman, the 2021 Class AAA state champion and one of this season's Class 4A favorites with Bearden, to 34 points on Wednesday and then again against Farragut (28-9).

"We pride ourselves on playing on the defensive end and knowing that some nights the ball isn't going to fall," Underwood said. "To be in the state final and hold your opponent to 34 makes you pretty proud of that." 

But this journey to the top didn't come easy and wasn't without tough losses. 

There were disappointments. Last season's 48-39 quarterfinal loss to Hardin County is a memory no one has forgotten. It wasn't because the Lady Bulldogs lost. It was the fact they felt primed for a deep postseason run.

"Last year and this year were the only times when I felt like we genuinely had a chance to do it," Underwood said "That's kind of the evolution of 2012 to now. Back then we were just trying to compete and get there and happy with that. 

"Now we're at a point where kids want it more."

Now, Underwood has Bearden on top of Class 4A. It's a place he envisioned when he saw Riverdale a state champion, or Blackman, or Memphis Central. He wanted his program there.

"It's been Murfreesboro and Memphis," Underwood said. "We talked about wanting to compete against the biggest and the baddest.

"When you first get down here (to state), you are almost just happy to be down here. Then the evolution came and you aren't just happy to be here, you want to stay a minute and then you want to win it."

And to do it on a historic Knoxville night against Bearden's biggest rival made the championship even more special. Underwood recalled the Lady Bulldogs' 2015 semifinal loss to Oakland when the Lady Patriots went on to lose to Blackman in an all-Murfreesboro championship game.

"I never dreamed we would be playing Farragut in the finals," Underwood said. "But I knew we were going to play a really good Blackman team and Beech was a very good team.

"Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee have always been so good in girls basketball. And East Tennessee has been pretty darn good too. We just had to prove it to everybody."

Reach Tom Kreager at tkreager@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Kreager.