The past week for the University of Tennessee women’s basketball team saw them playing against two of the top teams in the nation. Last Thursday, No. 25 Tennessee played No. 3 UConn, and lost 67-61 after a poor fourth quarter. The Lady Vols then welcomed No. 12 Kentucky to Thompson-Boling Arena on Sunday, and upset the Wildcats, 70-53.
Tennessee starts the week 10-3 overall and 4-1 in the conference, while also sitting at No. 3 in the SEC standings. Let’s take a more in-depth look at how the Lady Vols played these past two games.
Backcourt
Tennessee played big against UConn and opted to start just one guard, Jordan Horston. The sophomore guard was averaging 11.8 points and 4.3 assists per game, in the four matches leading up to her game against the Huskies. However, she was unable to replicate those numbers against UConn.
Horston finished the game with just two points on 11 shots. She only recorded three assists and two rebounds, while turning the ball over four times.
She continued to struggle to find her shot against No. 12 Kentucky. Horston recorded two points on nine shots. She did, however, dish out seven assists, but also coughed up the ball four times.
Horston struggled this past week to find her shot and to hold onto the basketball. The Lady Vols’ next two games are against Ole Miss and Florida, so she should see her number get back to those averages before this past week. However, her play recently has not been good, and she even saw her minutes decrease from UConn to Kentucky, in favor of Destiny Salary.
Grade: D+
Frontcourt
The Tennessee frontcourt scored in bunches these past two games. Against UConn, the Lady Vols finished with four players in double figures, and in the Kentucky matchup, three players dropped more than 10 points.
Rae Burrell ended the game against the Huskies as Tennessee’s top scorer. She dropped 18 points, nine of them coming from deep. She also grabbed eight boards and dished out two assists. Over her past five games, Burrell has averaged 17.2 points and 4.2 rebounds per game.
Burrell took a slight step back in her action against Kentucky, but still produced for the Lady Vols. The junior guard finished with 13 points and seven rebounds, but she turned the ball over a team-high five times.
Rennia Davis didn’t shoot particularly well in Thursday night’s contest, but she made her impact known despite her poor shooting. The senior leader of the Lady Vols scored 11 points (four-of-12 shooting) and tallied nine rebounds and three assists while blocking one shot.
Davis picked up her play against the Wildcats and showed everybody her vintage self. Tennessee’s captain finished with a double-double of 15 points and 20 rebounds and dished out four assists. The double-double is her 35th in her career, putting her fifth all-time among Lady Vols. Davis’ 20 rebounds were also the most by a Lady Vol at home since Daedra Charles grabbed 22 back on March 16, 1991.
Marta Suárez played efficient and effective basketball for 28 minutes. She scored 10 points on 57.1% shooting. She was active on the boards and finished with six rebounds. The Spaniard did however turn the ball over three times.
Suárez didn’t play as well against Kentucky as she did against UConn, but that was because of the solid bench performance by Kasiyahna Kushkituah not necessarily due to bad play. The freshman import finished with a modest six points, four rebounds and two turnovers in 22 minutes of action.
A critique of Tamari Key from last season was her lack of aggressiveness, but this season, she has clearly improved. While playing against the Huskies, the second-year big scored 10 points on seven shots and tallied nine boards and swatted away three balls.
Key played even better against the Wildcats. She totaled a career-high of 19 points, along with four rebounds and two blocks. Key has now been in double digits for five-straight games, averaging 14.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game over that time frame.
No team could ask for a better performance from their starters than what the Lady Vols accomplished these past two games. The most glaring issue was shooting efficiency, as both Burrell and Davis missed plenty of shots in the two games, but they are talented enough to fix those mistakes, and docking them would just be nit-picking.
Grade: A
Bench
The bench suffered some highs and lows against the Huskies. Offensively, they struggled to produce points. As a unit, they went three-of-11 from the field and two-of-seven from behind the arc. The bench did, however, dish out seven assists, with five of them coming from Jordan Walker. The second unit did an okay job underneath the glass, they recovered six rebounds. They also coughed up some offensive chances with five turnovers but recovered some of them after picking the pockets of UConn three times.
Their play picked up significantly against the Wildcats. They went six-of-13 from the field on their way to 15 points. The bench remained active on the glass and recovered 14 boards. However, they assisted on seven shots and coughed the ball up six times. They did take some chances away from Kentucky by stealing two balls and blocking another pair.
Overall, the bench did a fine job. They created more opportunities for their team than they took away and they weren’t the reason that Tennessee lost the game against UConn. It was a productive week that saw Walker and Kushkituah step up in big ways.
Grade: B-
Offense
Tennessee’s offense was able to keep up with UConn through the game, up until the final quarter. In the first two quarters, the Lady Vols had worked their way to a 40.0/50.0/50.0 slash line and a one-point lead. After the half, Tennessee shot 35.7% from the field and 20.0% from three, but they were up by four and had out-scored UConn in every quarter leading up to that point.
However, everything changed during the last 10 minutes. The Lady Vols went 5-16 from the field and 1-5 from three. They also didn’t get enough chances at the free-throw line, as they only took 10 attempts all game and just two in the final quarter.
The Lady Vols put up an offensive clinic against Kentucky. They finished the game with a 47.5% shot from the field and 41.7% from three-point land, which helped them to rack up 70 points. This season, the Wildcats have given up 64.3 points per game on 40.6% shooting from the field and 28.6% from three.
Plus, Tennessee’s fourth-quarter bug-a-boo’s went away against their SEC rival. In the final stanza, they shot 62.5% (10-of-16) from the field and dropped 21 points.
The Lady Vols’ offense was working for six quarters this past week. While the second quarter against Kentucky didn’t hurt them (nine points scored), their fourth-quarter blunder against UConn cost them the game and also the grade.
Grade: B-
Defense
The Lady Vols proved stingy on the defensive end at some moments and then acted like swiss cheese the next. The third quarter was easily their best defensive effort against one of the best teams in the nation. They held UConn to just 28.6% shooting and zero-of-four from three. The Huskies only scored 11 points in that quarter.
However, in the second and fourth quarters, UConn had their way. The Huskies shot 61.5% from the field and 50% from three in the second, which ended with them scoring 18 points. In the final stanza, UConn scored 22 points in part by a 44.4% (four-of-nine) stroke from three.
The Tennessee defense looked to be more focused against Kentucky. The Lady Vols stopped one of the best shooting teams in the nation. Kentucky has averaged 76.1 points per game this season and has shot 44.7% from the field and 33.6% from three. Sunday was a far cry from its season averages.
The Lady Vols held Kentucky to 28.6% from the field and just 29.2% from behind the arc. Their best quarter came at the end as they shot 35.3% from the field and 37.5% from three to score 22 points. In the other quarters, they did not shoot above 30%.
Like the offense, the defense played incomplete games. UConn made Tennessee pay for its defensive lapses, and scored 18 and 22 points in the second and fourth quarters, respectively, and eventually took the win. Tennessee let up against Kentucky in the final quarter, but that ultimately didn’t matter as Lady Vols matched the Wildcats in points that quarter.
Grade: B-
Overall
Tennessee competed against one of the greatest programs ever, for three quarters. This has become somewhat of a trend for the Lady Vols, after winning a one-point game against LSU (then- 4-6), and losing a one-point game against Georgia. Given their recent games, this was to be expected, but a team as talented as Tennessee shouldn’t be giving away games in the closing minutes.
However, on Sunday afternoon, Tennessee broke that trend. They defeated SEC rival and current top 15 team Kentucky, in a must-win game.
Beyond the lack of production from Horston and mental lapses in a few quarters, Tennessee played excellent team basketball and showed who they are; a rebound heavy, pass-first team that has multiple double-digit scorers all across the court and on the bench.
Grade: B+
