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RALEIGH — Sandra Kay Yow walked onto the court inside Reynolds Coliseum and took a long look around. Most everything was as she left it.

A long and loud ovation had begun as she cased the joint, her sunken eyes darting as she looked at her team and her coaches and the crowd, which was standing and screaming and staring at her. It seemed to make her uncomfortable. She smiled, held her hands over her heart and pointed upward.

Yow walked to the scorers' table and back to her bench, blinking and smiling, bowing once to the crowd then hugging the N.C. State mascot as she turned and gave the Wolfpack sign to the fans behind her bench.

Then she sat and wiped away a tear.

But just one.

Coach Yow returned to the bench Thursday night after missing the last 16 games since doctors detected progression of breast cancer first diagnosed in 1987. She'd fought the disease ever since, pausing two years ago when it recurred then finally taking a seat in November, unsure if Thursday night would ever come.

"I didn't know," she said afterward. "I had no idea."

Yow, a coaching legend from Gibsonville, has built N.C. State women's basketball into a national power in 32 years, taking the program from its infancy to its place among the elite women's basketball programs in America. When word of her latest battle with cancer passed through the sport, the game paused for one of its pioneers.

"It was pretty emotional," said Virginia coach Debbie Ryan, herself a cancer survivor. "When I first walked onto the court and saw Kay, that was emotional for me.

"If you've never had cancer, you can't imagine what it's like."

Ryan, who instructed her staff to wear pink in honor of Yow's personal fight against cancer, walked into the arena after the State coach and immediately sought out her old adversary of 30 years. They hugged in front of the Wolfpack bench.

"I told her to keep up the fight," Ryan said. "This is a real battle. This isn't a battle on a basketball court. This is bigger than life."

Yow has made her fight against the disease public, arranging for the first Jimmy V Women's Classic to be played in Raleigh to raise money and awareness for cancer research and helping organize the Hoops for Hope breast cancer awareness and fundraising event, which will be held here Sunday.

"I hope everybody comes," she said to a crowd that stayed around after watching State defeat Virginia 71-60, the Pack's 14th victory of the season, Yow's 697th all-time.

A few thousand came Thursday to see their coach. They brought signs and banners, and though some wore pink most wore red. Yow told the fans afterward that she'd missed them.

She'd stayed at home, between trips to the doctor and the hospital, listening to her team play games on the radio. She thought between chemo treatments and tests for tumor markers and cell counts that she might not ever coach again. Then on other days she thought she might just go over to the arena no matter what.

"I would be listening on the radio or something," Yow said. "There were times when I thought I could just go over there."

But deep down she knew she couldn't. Deep down, she knew this was bigger than anything she'd ever faced.

"It was hard," she said. "It was mind over matter. It's been tough. I'm still in a tough battle. You just don't know. I take it day to day."

Yow's won almost every battle she's ever been in, from her days playing and coaching at old Gibsonville High to her days at Allen Jay and Elon. She'll win her 700th game in the coming weeks, and she'll take her team deep into another season. But this season isn't like the others. She knows that, and Ryan knows that.

The two old foes paused a little longer at mid-court Thursday night, a coach who's fought through the ravages of cancer and lived to coach again, and the other living the nightmare right now.

"I told her she has a tremendous chance to overcome this," Ryan said. "I told her to keep fighting."

Yow took 16 games off and put her program in the hands of her assistants. She walked away from everything she'd built, not sure she would ever see it again from the same vantage point. Yow walked into Reynolds Coliseum and looked around just to make sure nothing had changed Thursday. Everything looked the same.

But deep down, she knew everything would be different from now on.

Ed Hardin can be reached at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com