After today. . .

#1

meekfan

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#1
Is there anyone here who doesn't think we can beat ND? They looked certifiably mediocre today against Oregon State, the now 8-4 Beavers haven't beaten a decent team yet but were leading at the half over ND.
 
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#2
#2
We have trailed at half a few times this year...
That said I do think it would be a good game
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#3
#3
I don't have confidence that we will because we have not beaten someone ranked ahead of us in forever.
 
#5
#5
Unfortunately our recruiting hits have been losses, and the losses have been hits (for other teams). Holly was a bad hire. I hope this train wreck gets corrected soon.
 
#6
#6
Unfortunately our recruiting hits have been losses, and the losses have been hits (for other teams). Holly was a bad hire. I hope this train wreck gets corrected soon.

Really? #5 in the country sounds like a train wreck? CHW hasn't even had a chance to really recruit yet! You have no idea what you are talking about! Let me guess you think CBJ should be fired too after one year? DUMB!!!
 
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#9
#9
Really? #5 in the country sounds like a train wreck? CHW hasn't even had a chance to really recruit yet! You have no idea what you are talking about! Let me guess you think CBJ should be fired too after one year? DUMB!!!
I think what Escape Goat is talking about is the LVs have had top ranked players forever including #1 ranked Mercedes, but they haven't beat a ranked team on the road in 5.5 years. The LVs were ranked #3 until they met a good team, Stanford and they dropped to 5th. Now it's back to cupcake opponents.

Give the ranking of the LV players, they are top tier. But, in actual performance they are among the also rans. To date, Holly hasn't shown much ability to develop her superior players. With the amount of experience she has, one would think the team would just keep rolling on, but it hasn't happened. Every additional year without success erodes the prestige the LV's once enjoyed. Perhaps Goat is just anxious to stop the bleeding.
 
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#10
#10
The carry over from concern about football decline exists in many boarders. I would wonder if those who use the term "bad hire" can ever remember a good hire who didn't win the SEC outright in the sport they were hired for. I also have began to believe that folks overly negative on one board are the same on others, and the same about how they approach life in general. politics, religion/non-religion, friendships, outlook toward life.
 
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#11
#11
Unfortunately our recruiting hits have been losses, and the losses have been hits (for other teams). Holly was a bad hire. I hope this train wreck gets corrected soon.

Train wreck? You keep using that term. Which recruiting hits has Holly had that have been loses? She's only had one class.
 
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#12
#12
A train wreck is what is taking place on the men's side. The women's team is far from a train wreck. Sorry Goat but that is a stupid statement. Our resident UCONN fan states that Holly hasn't shown the ability to develop her superior players. She has had a season and a quarter and you already know this? The fact is you don't know this and neither do we. Holly may make it or she may not. We will know more after next year. So far she has done O.K., not outstanding, but O.K.
 
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#13
#13
The carry over from concern about football decline exists in many boarders. I would wonder if those who use the term "bad hire" can ever remember a good hire who didn't win the SEC outright in the sport they were hired for. I also have began to believe that folks overly negative on one board are the same on others, and the same about how they approach life in general. politics, religion/non-religion, friendships, outlook toward life.
Wow, that's quite a far reaching negative opinion. :)
 
#14
#14
While I get that Tenn hasn't beaten a top five team in 5+ years, let's not forget that this is only Holly's second season. The previous four years rest solely on Pat's shoulders. I realize that her health probably played a big factor, the fact is that when she decided to stop playing UConn, we stopped winning! Her philosophy of "if you're going to beat the best, you've got to play the best" has certainly proved true! While I refuse to get into a Tenn/UConn renewal argument, Tenn's record against top ten teams since '08 speaks for itself. I also think that Holly's first recruiting class was great. Had she gotten Kaela, it would've been phenomenal! I'm still a bit suspect of Mercedes being the top player in her class, she's showing nice improvement, and great potential! I say we give Holly a bit more time before considering her a bad hire! She definitely knows how Pat did things, and I think she'll use that to her advantage. What I want to see, is her running this team the way she wants too. I love Pat more than anyone, but Holly needs the chance to run the program herself, without constant comparison to Pat. There will NEVER be another Pat Summitt! The ND game is a HUGE opportunity, and I see the team improving quite a bit since Nov! The passing and ball movement was pretty solid against Lipscomb! Sure, there were a few bad shots, and Simmons too a few quick, ill-advised shots, but overall it was a good game. I would like to see Jones work on her ball handling skills, but she's improving. I definitely believe that the LVs can realistically beat ND, and that hasn't been the case in the past several years! They just need to play good confident TEAM ball.
 
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#15
#15
This team looks to me like the best women's team we've had in several years. Doesn't mean it is great--it isn't--but we've got quite a bit of talent, more than enough to get to the Final Four if the coaches develop the team's toughness and confidence. UT has lost quite a bit of its swagger--mostly because the program really fell off a lot more than people realize in PS's final several years. The recruiting really fell off: we were getting highly ranked players, but the wrong ones. If you follow, say, the top 20 recruits after they join a college team, inevitably about half will meet their high expectations and half will prove overrated and not really that good. We got a lot of the "not so good" ranked prospects--which means our talent evaluation wasn't good. In particular UT's guard recruiting for about a decade was close to terrible. A program of UT's stature should have at least three GOOD guards EVERY YEAR. For a long time we might have had one. We didn't even have a true point guard for a couple of years. Warlick really needs to work hard with Jones and Russell and manage Simmons more aggressively. We're pretty meh at the wing position--I hope Carter keeps coming on. Generally, Warlick has got to get the team to play better against good opponents--have to shoot better (a constant problem) and player tougher defense. We got slack and now we're in a catch-up mode.
 
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#16
#16
I think what Escape Goat is talking about is the LVs have had top ranked players forever including #1 ranked Mercedes, but they haven't beat a ranked team on the road in 5.5 years. The LVs were ranked #3 until they met a good team, Stanford and they dropped to 5th. Now it's back to cupcake opponents.

Give the ranking of the LV players, they are top tier. But, in actual performance they are among the also rans. To date, Holly hasn't
shown much ability to develop her superior players. With the amount of experience she has, one would think the team would just keep rolling on, but it hasn't happened. Every additional year without success erodes the prestige the LV's once enjoyed. Perhaps
Goat is just anxious to stop the bleeding.

Exactly!
 
#18
#18
This year and next will be telling for Holly. This is a good team but can the coaches make it better and play to strengths rather than weaknesses? Next year everybody but Simmons returns. At a minimum, IMO, Warlick needs to get to the Final Four this year and next and build some momentum. Warlick may be a new head coach but she has been on the staff for almost 30 years, so she may be facing coaching burnout issues herself. She and the staff have steadied the program and improved it after the decline of PS's last few years. It would be great to see her make a statement with this team, which means building mental toughness and beating good teams. She's got to start cultivating toughness to go with talent.
 
#19
#19
This year and next will be telling for Holly. This is a good team but can the coaches make it better and play to strengths rather than weaknesses? Next year everybody but Simmons returns. At a minimum, IMO, Warlick needs to get to the Final Four this year and next and build some momentum. Warlick may be a new head coach but she has been on the staff for almost 30 years, so she may be facing coaching burnout issues herself. She and the staff have steadied the program and improved it after the decline of PS's last few years. It would be great to see her make a statement with this team, which means building mental toughness and beating good teams. She's got to start cultivating toughness to go with talent.

That's a fair assessment but this is Holly's first class with her recruiting staff and if she wants to prove her mettle she will need to show some progress this year and next. I agree.
 
#20
#20
No confidence. This team is above average, but not great. Maybe, maybe elite 8

Lol. I mean, damn, we made the elite 8 LAST year and I think we are CLEARLY a better team this year. And, there are a lot of teams that are CLEARLY worse teams compared to last year such as Baylor, so why the heck would we MAYBE get elite 8 this year? It's final 4 time this year imo. Sure, we may not make it, but that's true for every team.

All this talk about beating top 5 teams is so overblown. For starters, look at EVERY team's schedule and see how many times they even PLAY a top #5 team. Not very many. And, of the ones who do, 9 times out of 10, if they are ranked ahead of that team, they win, as they are supposed to OR lose if they are ranked below that team, as they are supposed to. What does any of that prove?

I personally think we are the #2 team in the country. We played Stanford on the road down to the last minute and I favor us in a 2nd meeting on a neutral court. I think we're better than, ND, Duke, and KY and (top 6 teams) will get to prove it against ND and KY (possibly twice). So, we'll see what happens on the court.
 
#21
#21
The very real probability of having to beat Stanford, Notre Dame, or Louisville on their home court to make the final four will be a difficult task for any team. Granted I think we are as good or probably better than those teams but the fact that we have not beaten teams of this caliber on the road is what troubles me. I think playing some more highly ranked teams and hostile crowds on the road would better prepare the Lady Vols for what they will face in the tournament, especially since they only play Kentucky at home this year.
 
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