The Tennessee women’s basketball team defeated Lipscomb 77-52 Monday night. The Lady Vols improved to 6-1 on the season, while the Lady Bisons fell to 3-3.
After an eight-day Christmas break and limited team practices, the Lady Vols looked a little sloppy at first, but they cleaned it up as the game went on, and earned the win to finish pre-conference play.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Davis leads the way
Senior Rennia Davis had been mired in a small scoring slump through the first five games of the year, before putting up a 19-point performance in the upset at No. 15 Indiana. She followed that up with a solid 16 minutes against UNCG, in a game devoted to playing reserves.
Despite the recent hot streak, she earned the SEC Player of the Week award for those two games, there were questions about how Davis would look coming out of the break.
She showed tonight why she’s still one of the top players in the league. Davis played 23 minutes and scored 19 points with eleven rebounds, her 32nd career double-double. That mark ties her with Tamika Catchings for sixth all-time in career double-doubles at Tennessee.
“I’m happy about that (record), and I actually knew about it before the game because one of the fans told me on Twitter,” Davis said after the game. “So the fans keep me updated, and I wouldn’t have known without them. It gave me something to strive for tonight, and obviously, the points will come, but I am really trying to focus on rebounding right now for this team because I feel as if I can do that really well for us.”
Davis, who was named to the Preseason All-SEC Team, is averaging 12.3 points and 8.1 rebounds per game thus far. She has heated up at the right time for the Lady Vols, as they begin SEC play later this week.
Getting the rust off
It was not too surprising that Tennessee got off to a slow start, given the eight-day break the team had just had. In a press conference this past week, head coach Kellie Harper indicated that the team did not get an official team practice in before the game, just a shootaround.
Tennessee put up a good first quarter, its 26 points was the highest total in a first quarter this season. The Lady Vols’ mistakes caught up to them in the second, however, as the Lady Vols scored just 10 points, their lowest total of any quarter this season. Tennessee hit four-of-14 shots in the second quarter, while also going zero-five on three pointers.
“I thought we got a little lax in our communication, which didn’t directly affect our shooting percentage, but probably indirect,” Harper said. “We weren’t quite on the same page in that quarter.”
Tennessee looked much better in the second half. The Lady Vols’ third quarter included an 11-0 run that saw them reach their biggest lead of the night, and a separate 15-0 run spanning the final minutes of the third and the start of the fourth quarter.
“At halftime, we talked more about better ball movement, I thought that would have helped us in that second quarter,” Harper said. “We were a little stagnant in the second. We talked about being better communicators, listening, communicating with each other, echoing calls from the bench as well. I think those things, those mental things, really helped our team in the second half.”
Owning the paint
Tennessee has thrived in the paint this year, both offensively and defensively. The Lady Vols have more size on their bench than some teams have on their whole roster.
Keyen Green handled the center position nicely before her season-ending leg injury, and 6-foot-5 sophomore Tamari Key has started every game since then. 6-foot-4 Senior Kasiyahna Kushkituah and 6-foot-5 sophomore Emily Saunders have also seen significant time at center.
“I think for us going into this game, we knew we would have the size advantage,” Harper said. “We wanted to get the ball inside and give ourselves opportunities to score. We wanted post touches, paint touches. Both are really important.”
Tennessee scored 46 points in the paint tonight while holding Lipscomb to just eight. The Lady Vols have outscored all seven of their opponents in the paint by a margin of 326-112.
Tennessee’s defense up the middle has forced its opponents to take more field goals. The Lady Vols entered the game ranked 14th in the nation in field goal percentage defense at 31.7%. Shooting has been a strength for Lipscomb this year, but was held to 30.4% on field goals.
Tennessee has held all seven opponents this year below 40% and six of seven to 32% or lower on field goal percentage.
“They’re just really tough to keep off the glass, really tough to keep from getting to their spots, for sure,” Lipscomb head coach and former Lady Vol Lauren Sumski said. “And then, you all know the size that they have inside, and I think that’s been a staple of Tennessee forever, so they just kept coming.”
Up next
The Lady Vols will open SEC play as they travel to Texas A&M this Thursday. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET on New Year’s Eve and will be broadcast on ESPNU.
