The No. 25 Tennessee women’s basketball team upset No. 12 Kentucky 70-53 Sunday afternoon. With their third top-15 win of the season, the Lady Vols improved to 10-3 (4-1 SEC) while the Wildcats fell to 11-4 (4-3 SEC).
For the first time in her career, sophomore Tamari Key led the Lady Vols in scoring, scoring a career high 19 points, along with four rebounds and two blocks.
Senior Rennia Davis recorded her 35th career double-double, with 15 points and a career high 20 rebounds. Junior Rae Burrell tallied 13 points and seven rebounds. Also in double figures was senior Kasiyahna Kushkituah, who came off the bench for 11 points, six rebounds and two blocks.
“Well, obviously, I’m really proud of our team’s performance today,” head coach Kellie Harper said after the game. “You know, I think, right now people are getting to see what we can do. I think we’re putting together a pretty good resume. Three top-15 wins right now. I think our style of play is fun to watch. And I think our team is pretty locked in. We’re playing hard.”
The first quarter started off with a strong Tennessee run. The Lady Vols took a commanding 12-3 lead five minutes in, and forced Kentucky to use a timeout. The Wildcats played much better basketball after the break, and the first quarter ended with a 18-12 Tennessee lead.
Kentucky started the second quarter with a small 6-0 run that tied the game halfway through the frame. Tennessee responded with a three-pointer from Burrell, and never relinquished the lead. The Lady Vols took a 27-22 lead into halftime.
“I wasn’t as excited about where we were going into halftime,” Harper said. “But coming out in the second half, one of the things we talked about was, ‘Let’s go into the second half and do all of those little things.’”
Tennessee emerged from halftime and asserted dominance over the Wildcats. Key alone scored the first six points of the quarter as the Lady Vols cruised by Kentucky.
The Lady Vols outscored the Wildcats 22-9 in the quarter, hitting 47.4% (9-19) of field goals and 2-2 three-pointers. Tennessee controlled the paint, grabbing 17 rebounds to Kentucky’s five. The Lady Vols scored 11 second chance points on six offensive rebounds, and on defense, limited the Wildcats’ second chance opportunities to just two offensive boards.
Tennessee was actually outscored in the final quarter, 22-21, but it was far too late for the Wildcats. Kentucky had its best shooting percentage in the fourth, 35.3% (6-17), but the Lady Vols did as well, making 62.5% (10-16) of their shots, as they routed Kentucky their third top-15 win of the year.
“We just wanted to bounce back,” Key said. “We played well. We had great effort against UConn, we just didn’t finish out the game like we wanted to, so we really used that as our motivation today.”
Tennessee now finds itself near the top of the SEC, as it looks down the home stretch of the regular season. The upset victory puts the Lady Vols at 4-1 in the conference, tied for second with No. 8 Texas A&M.
Tennessee, of course, was supposed to face the Aggies back in December, before the game was postponed due to Tennessee’s coronavirus outbreak. It still remains unclear at this point if the game will be rescheduled, though circumstances might dictate that it will be played.
It is very possible at this point that Tennessee and Texas A&M will be two of the teams playing for the top four seeds in the SEC tournament, and a tiebreaker may be needed to finalize the seeding.
That’s far down the line, however. The Lady Vols proved that they are one of the top teams in the conference, and maybe even in the nation with how they played today. Coming out of the disappointing loss Thursday night, Tennessee was nearly prefect in a must win game.
Virtually every area of concern from the UConn game that caused Tennessee to slip, was not only addressed, but dominated by the Big Orange.
The Lady Vols had the obvious size advantage, which they used to control the paint. They crashed the glass to a tune of 56 boards to Kentucky’s 25, (as a team just five more than Davis’ total).
“That’s what my team needed me to do today,” Davis said. “We really emphasized not letting Kentucky get second chance points, so I really tried to crash the defensive boards. Plus, someone from home challenged me to get 15, so I had to get a little more than that.”
Additionally, the Lady Vols outscored the Wildcats in the paint, 44-18. Against UConn, they had just 20.
The team’s shooting improved as well. Tennessee shot field goals at 47.5% and three’s at 41.7% for the day. Against UConn, the shooting was 41% and 28%, respectively.
Harper rallied her team to a statement win. She said on Thursday that her team’s response to the loss was a choice they had to make. The Lady Vols chose to learn from the mistakes and grow as a team. As a result, they handled Rhyne Howard (14 points, 5-22) and a very good Kentucky team with ease.
The Lady Vols have done this well all season. In its three games after a loss this year, Tennessee is 3-0, and has won by an average score of 26.6 points.
Tennessee will finish its homestand this week with contests against Ole Miss and Florida. Up first is Ole Miss, on Thursday, Jan. 28. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on SECN+.
