STILLWATER, Oklahoma — Saturday night, she patrolled the sideline across from the name of a coaching legend she was listed with a day earlier.
Kim Mulkey was coaching her reigning national champion Baylor Lady Bears against Oklahoma State, a game they won 69-42. Her squad's suffocating defense held the Cowgirls to nine points in each of the first three quarters.
But across the floor from her bench was the script signature of an Oklahoma State coaching legend, emblazoning its naming in his honor.
Eddie Sutton.
Sutton coached the OSU men's basketball team from 1990-2006, taking the Cowboys to two Final Fours (1995, 2004).
Friday, the pair were announced as finalists for the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, the second time Mulkey has been a finalist.
It's Sutton's seventh.
It's clear Mulkey deserves the honor and is going to be in the hall at some point, whether that's this year or in the near future. She took the reigns of a program without tradition and turned it in to one of the women's game's blue-blood programs, winning three national championships along the way and developing countless pro's.
She's never won less than 20 games as a head coach, with all 20 seasons coming at Baylor. She'll have a chance for her 600th win Tuesday and Mulkey has coached in the postseason every year.
Those are the types of accomplishments the Hall of Fame was designed to enshrine.
After the final horn sounded on her Lady Bears' sweep of OSU Saturday, Mulkey was asked what it meant to be a finalist alongside Sutton.
"He was one of the greatest coaches," Mulkey said of Sutton.
That comes during a season, in which, several key basketball figures have slammed the hall of fame for not yet inducting the coach. That includes ESPN's Fran Fraschilla.
In fact, the Lady Bears were playing the second game of a men's-women's doubleheader in Stillwater on Saturday. Before the first game, Texas Tech wore shirts calling for voters to put Sutton, who won 806 career games at four schools, in the hall of fame.
He took Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky and OSU each to the Sweet 16. He made the Elite Eight with the Razorbacks and Wildcats, both.
Chris Beard, who like Mulkey is a reigning AP Coach of the Year, even said why after his Red Raiders were upset.
Sutton is far from a perfect individual. A quick scan of his Wikipedia page will show that.
If you don't know, Sutton spent four years as the head men's basketball coach at Kentucky before he was forced to resign due to major NCAA violations. Stillwater was his second chance.
But even then, the end to his tenure at OSU landed him in hot water. Sutton was involved in a car accident in which he was cited for Driving Under the Influence in Febuary 2006.
He resigned a month later and his son, Sean, took over the program he'd helped revive.
But he's not the only finalist who has had public imperfections.
Kobe Bryant, the late guard who was one of the greatest to ever play in the NBA, is widely considered a guarantee to be inducted as a first-ballot inductee. During his career, Bryant was accused of sexual assault.
He and his accuser reached an undisclosed settlement to a civil suit and afterward, Bryant became an ambassador for the game and Mulkey even said she was thankful for his impact on women's basketball upon his recent death.
As an 18-year-old wandering into Gallagher-Iba Arena for the first time, there are few things you learn more quickly than Eddie Sutton's impact on the school, town, state of Oklahoma and on the sport itself.
It's clearly resonated with the nation's reigning coaches of the year and all of his former players.
"I don't have a vote, but I have a voice," Mulkey said.
Mulkey called for voters to make Sutton the first induction in this year's class. She even added, "If I have to step aside to make room for a man like that to get it, I'd tell those voters to vote for Eddie Sutton."
Mulkey added she's not competing with Sutton, because the pair became legends in separate parts of the game. But she stated that's how strongly she feels the honor is long overdue.
The induction announcement will come in Atlanta in April, during the men's Final Four.
And Mulkey isn't the only one campaigning for Sutton, now.
It's an incredibly classy move from Mulkey, to use her voice and platform to campaign for someone who left an impact on the game. Even if that person isn't flawless.
Because Mulkey's and Sutton's accomlishments are what the Hall of Fame is designed to enshrine.