The Central Arkansas game came to a close, and Holly Warlick approached the podium to address the media. The four-year coach laughed while she said the team played so well that she didn’t need to take off her sports jacket.
Since that 102-47 win back in mid-November, Warlick’s jacket has seemingly been coming off more and more. The losses were piling up for Warlick, and the team needed a big win over a rival to quiet the critics for another week.
The Lady Vols (13-8, 4-4 SEC) got just that in front of 12,613 fans on Sunday. Warlick’s jacket stayed on for the team’s 70-42 win over the Alabama Crimson Tide, cementing the team’s 42nd straight win over its SEC West rival.
“My only message to (the team) today,” Warlick said after the win, “was to play hard. Give great effort, and I thought we did just that. It was that simple of a talk. Don’t promise what you want. Commit to it. They committed to what their individual goals were, and I think you see the results of the score.”
With Bashaara Graves sidelined due to a sprained ankle, Jaime Nared was given the starting nod at the forward position. Nared responded with her first career double — double scoring 17 points and snatching 10 rebounds. Mercedes Russell, also had a double-double, picking up 12 points with 13 rebounds.
Nared and Russell’s strong play were highlighted by their relentless effort to grab offensive misses. The duo combined for eight offensive rebounds and 23 total boards that helped pave the way to a 47-26 rebounding domination over the Crimson Tide.
This rebounding rodeo comes just one game after the Lady Vols gave up 46 rebounds in their first ever loss to Mississippi State on Thursday. With a rebound that Warlick calls, “flat-out effort,” the Lady Vols showed how much effort they were willing to put in, winning the battle on the boards against Bama (13-9, 2-7 SEC).
“We’d been in a little slump,” Nared said. “I just wanted to rebound today.”
“In the first quarter, we had five offensive rebounds, and (Nared) had all of them,” Russell said. “She did a great job crashing the boards.”
As Russell and Nared grabbed 53 percent of the team’s rebounds, freshman Te’a Cooper scorched the Crimson Tide for 17 points on 6-11 shooting. Cooper, who only played seven minutes in the first half because of foul trouble, came out with a vengeance in the second half by scoring the Lady Vols’ first 12 points of the third quarter.
Cooper entered 2016 on a sour note, cumulatively shooting 5-26 (19.2 percent) in the team’s four games of the month. However, the Powder Springs, Georgia native has flipped the script completely in her last three games, shooting a hearty 17-33 (51.5 percent).
Although her grit and determination to get to the rim has put her in some foul trouble, the freshman’s defensive and offensive skills have shined through these past three games.
“What gets Te’a in trouble is that she goes too deep in the lane,” Warlick said. “Te’a is learning this game and getting better at this level, and that’s all I can ask her to do… She’s one of our best defenders. I trust Te’a defending and on the ball.
“I think that if you’re a great defender and you’re aggressive, it’s hard for you not to get one foul. I grew up understanding that. My father wouldn’t ask me how many points I had. He asked me how many fouls I had, so if I didn’t have more than one or two, I wasn’t playing hard enough, and I believe that because I was taught that.”
With some confidence under their belts, the Lady Vols will attempt to avenge an earlier loss to Arkansas this Thursday when the Razorbacks visit Thompson-Boling Arena (TV: SEC Network +, 7 p.m.).
The game has the potential to be Holly Warlick’s 100th win as a head coach.
