Lady Vols basketball is three points away from being perfect this season, and that’s not a good thing for head coach Kim Caldwell.
“I think that’s a negative,” Caldwell said. “We don’t want moral victories. We don’t want people telling us ‘you fought so hard, you’re so close.’ It’s our job to get it done.”
In Sunday’s loss to Oklahoma, Tennessee came back from down 19 to as close as a one-point deficit, but it didn’t lead after the first quarter. The Lady Vols did take the lead late against the Tigers but couldn’t hold on for any substantial amount of time.
When it came down to the final two shots, LSU did what it had to do. Kailyn Gilbert drove through the Tennessee defense to score and put the Tigers up two with less than a second left.
When the Lady Vols needed a clutch play, it couldn’t come up with it. The inbound to Zee Spearman got deflected by LSU, but she still got a shot off. It didn’t fall, and Tennessee lost again.
Just like against Oklahoma, the Lady Vols got outmatched early. The Tigers led by nine after 10 minutes and were up as many as 18 in the second quarter. Despite coming all the way back, that early lead left its mark late in the game as Tennessee could never get out to a substantial advantage.
After struggling on the glass against the Sooners, the Lady Vols didn’t fix their mistakes early enough, resulting in another poor rebounding performance. Tennessee was out-rebounded by eight and gave up 16 offensive rebounds.
“I’m a little bit surprised that we didn’t watch the film and fix it, and that’s how we came out,” Caldwell said. “I do think we eventually fixed it, but it was 10 minutes too late.”
Tennessee let Aneesah Morrow have a great performance. The forward scored 23 points and grabbed 21 rebounds for the Tigers. No matter who Caldwell put against Morrow, she could still score and she could still grab boards.
The Lady Vols knew what needed to change from their performance against Oklahoma. They needed to put together a complete 40-minute performance to beat a team as good as the Tigers.
Those improvements didn’t happen, and that’s why Tennessee will head to Arkansas with two losses instead of none. Despite Jewel Spear’s 53 points over those two games, she starts the conference home slate without a win.
“We have to learn what they keep preaching and actually do it,” Spear said, “or it’s not going to make a difference.”
Tennessee didn’t lose two games in a row because it failed to execute on its final shot. Tennessee lost twice because over 80 minutes, the Lady Vols didn’t execute as well as the two top-10 teams it faced.
As a coach, Caldwell has time to win plenty of games. Spear and the rest of the senior class don’t. That’s even more reason for these near-wins to hurt even more.
“These games that we can’t get back and they can’t get back, yes, maybe they are establishing something for the future,” Caldwell said. “I want them to be able to have that experience too.”
