We Won One We Should Have Won

[teacherdean]

Well we left no doubt about this one. We played a lot of players but never reduced ourselves to Alabama's level. We could have easily had a let down after the Kentucky game. Congratulations Lady Vols on a game well played. The ladies played with purpose. This can easily be a picture of things to come.

 

[Amb3096]

Well we left no doubt about this one. We played a lot of players but never reduced ourselves to Alabama's level. We could have easily had a let down after the Kentucky game. Congratulations Lady Vols on a game well played. The ladies played with purpose. This can easily be a picture of things to come.

This is a good example of them jumping on a team early and putting them away early. I hope they continue this trend. South Carolina will be tough, but the way they went for the jugular right from the get go was promising.

 

[madtownvol]

I thought they were sketchy in stretches of the first half but Bama could not take advantage. The second half the LVs looked much better defensively and more cohesive on the offensive side.

 

[Voluble2]

We won by a lot, but to my eye we didn't play all that well. We just played hard. That is enough against Bama but won't be against SC.

The nice thing about the SC game though is that if Holly can pull it off then it is the sort of win she could point at to say she is a good coach and won us one we shouldn't have won. So far we haven't won any of those sorts of games and have lost some we shouldn't. But there shouldn't be any pressure on us going in since we won't be expected to win.

 

[VolEire]

The nice thing about the SC game though is that if Holly can pull it off then it is the sort of win she could point at to say she is a good coach and won us one we shouldn't have won. So far we haven't won any of those sorts of games and have lost some we shouldn't. But there shouldn't be any pressure on us going in since we won't be expected to win.

How about the LVs winning the Stanford game. That was a jaw dropper for a lot of people. Mind you, Stanford isn't as good as it has been in previous years and the LVs had home court advantage, but at the time there was a lot of doubt that the LVs were going to pull it off. The LVs may lose against SC, but if any one has a chance of beating SC in the SEC it is the LVs.

 

[RollerVol]

I thought the girls made quite a statement in the "new" season. Oh, yeah, this is a brand new season now. Lady Vols beat SC by a touchdown.

GO LADY VOLS!

 

[madtownvol]

How about the LVs winning the Stanford game. That was a jaw dropper for a lot of people. Mind you, Stanford isn't as good as it has been in previous years and the LVs had home court advantage, but at the time there was a lot of doubt that the LVs were going to pull it off. The LVs may lose against SC, but if any one has a chance of beating SC in the SEC it is the LVs.

There was also a lot of doubt about beating KY on their home court, much less without Izzy in the 2nd half.

 

[armchair]

The only way we are going to beat South Carolina and other good teams now is to shoot well from outside, because we are not going to get much inside scoring anymore. Burdick has to keep knocking down mid-range jumpers as she did last night, and Massengale has to make threes. We'll score some inside, if our bigs pass well close to the basket and if/when we get offensive rebounds--but we can't count on it. We should see UT move the ball around more than we did with Harrison, and that could be a good thing. Warlick always wanted us to force the ball inside to Harrison, Harrison felt obligated to try and score (even when double-teamed) and that often made our offense inefficient. And Harrison consistently had a lot of turnovers because she, like Graves, often held the ball too long in the paint. Moore is not afraid to shoot the ball, but she is too thin and light to give us much presence inside. USC game will be very tough for us now but is still winnable is we shoot well and play good defense.

 

[orange plasma]

The only way we are going to beat South Carolina and other good teams now is to shoot well from outside, because we are not going to get much inside scoring anymore. Burdick has to keep knocking down mid-range jumpers as she did last night, and Massengale has to make threes. We'll score some inside, if our bigs pass well close to the basket and if/when we get offensive rebounds--but we can't count on it. We should see UT move the ball around more than we did with Harrison, and that could be a good thing. Warlick always wanted us to force the ball inside to Harrison, Harrison felt obligated to try and score (even when double-teamed) and that often made our offense inefficient. And Harrison consistently had a lot of turnovers because she, like Graves, often held the ball too long in the paint. Moore is not afraid to shoot the ball, but she is too thin and light to give us much presence inside. USC game will be very tough for us now but is still winnable is we shoot well and play good defense.

A good analysis. My big concern is rebounding with the loss of Izzy. I don't know if we have someone who will fill that gap and crash the boards aggressively especially on the offensive end to provide second chance points.

 

[teacherdean]

I thought they were sketchy in stretches of the first half but Bama could not take advantage. The second half the LVs looked much better defensively and more cohesive on the offensive side.

Midtownvol; I agree with you 100%. I think it took sometime adjusting to the new lineup and not having Izzy as an option. Practice is great but reality is another issue. I am so proud of how they adjusted and played well. Some may bring up the issue of our freshmen playing sketchy, however, this generally happened after the game had been decided. I applaud Holly for playing non starters so they could get some game experience. I think this is a great help to UCONN in the AAC they get to play their freshmen and bench players nearly every game. Practice is great but real game experience is so valuable in using the things learned in practice.

 

[Darth_Vol]

How about the LVs winning the Stanford game. That was a jaw dropper for a lot of people. Mind you, Stanford isn't as good as it has been in previous years and the LVs had home court advantage, but at the time there was a lot of doubt that the LVs were going to pull it off. The LVs may lose against SC, but if any one has a chance of beating SC in the SEC it is the LVs.

No, I think the consensus here before the Stanford game was they were as vulnerable as they have been in years and if Holly didn't beat them now it was never going to happen.

Comments about this being a statement game are silly. Holly couldn't have asked for a better opponent for their first game without Harrison. Bama is awful this year, and Tennessee was playing at home. It's always fun to pound Bama in anything, but in truth this game didn't really tell us a whole lot. If Holly wants to truly make a statement, the next game is her chance....

 

[armchair]

Bama is terrible, so this game didn't tell us much.

Basically, we will be leaning HEAVILY on six players--Burdick, Graves and Nared, plus Reynolds, Carter and Massengale. Not surprisingly, Nared's minutes roughly doubled last night over her season average--and she will be playing 20+ minutes from here out. That is fine as she is talented--and a pretty good passer. Moore will also play more, but whether she will play 20 minutes or so as she did last night is questionable. She was OK last night, but her liabilities will show, I think, when we play good teams. Warlick should consider playing Dunbar a bit more as she has some size and can shoot the three; I'm sure the coaches will see how games unfolded. We simply have no depth anymore.

 

[Amb3096]

A good analysis. My big concern is rebounding with the loss of Izzy. I don't know if we have someone who will fill that gap and crash the boards aggressively especially on the offensive end to provide second chance points.

I don't know if this was because of the zone defense, but the rebounding last night was not good. Gave up way too many offensive rebounds to Alabama, and SC will capitalize on those.

 

[Amb3096]

Moore will also play more, but whether she will play 20 minutes or so as she did last night is questionable. She was OK last night, but her liabilities will show, I think, when we play good teams.

She had six blocks last night and at least provided some degree of deterrence for players trying to drive to the hoop. I don't think Dunbar can do that. Offensively, Dunbar on paper should be a better option, but she did very little against Alabama, so I'm rethinking if she should be ahead of Moore on the rotation.

 

[armchair]

I don't know if this was because of the zone defense, but the rebounding last night was not good. Gave up way too many offensive rebounds to Alabama, and SC will capitalize on those.

I missed the first half--but in the 2nd I recall UT playing mostly man defense, yes? I agree with your point, though: The Vols HAVE struggled to rebound this year when playing zone. They've given up a lot of offensive rebounds in a few games. THIS is something Warlick needs to clean up because if we play, say, ND or another effective offensive team again, we will want to play some if not a lot of zone. If we play ND again, we should play zone 90 percent of the time, IMO.

What I find crazy is the positive change in Massengale's game from the moment Harrison went down. Have you noticed? She was borderline terrible for several games, missing everything, throwing the ball away, then Harrison goes down and out, and suddenly in the second half of the Kentucky game Massengale starts playing with hunger and energy and confidence, and showed the same last night. She's been a completely different, better player. A bit strange, to say the least, but we'll take it.

 

[Amb3096]

I missed the first half--but in the 2nd I recall UT playing mostly man defense, yes? I agree with your point, though: The Vols HAVE struggled to rebound this year when playing zone. They've given up a lot of offensive rebounds in a few games. THIS is something Warlick needs to clean up because if we play, say, ND or another effective offensive team again, we will want to play some if not a lot of zone. If we play ND again, we should play zone 90 percent of the time, IMO.

What I find crazy is the positive change in Massengale's game from the moment Harrison went down. Have you noticed? She was borderline terrible for several games, missing everything, throwing the ball away, then Harrison goes down and out, and suddenly in the second half of the Kentucky game Massengale starts playing with hunger and energy and confidence, and showed the same last night. She's been a completely different, better player. A bit strange, to say the least, but we'll take it.

Tennessee's rebounding in the 2nd half looked better, but I thought they played a lot of zone in the first half, and were getting beat on the glass repeatedly. Harrison was very good at holding her position.

Ariel has been in a slump for a few games, but she's been the 2nd best player (behind Harrison) for Tennessee this season. Even though she didn't make her shots against UK in the first half, she had 3 assists and 0 turnovers. She wasn't stinking it up. Shooters need to time to warm up. If anything, she looked more like the player that busted the game open against Stanford (among others).

 

[madtownvol]

Tennessee's rebounding in the 2nd half looked better, but I thought they played a lot of zone in the first half, and were getting beat on the glass repeatedly. Harrison was very good at holding her position.

Ariel has been in a slump for a few games, but she's been the 2nd best player (behind Harrison) for Tennessee this season. Even though she didn't make her shots against UK in the first half, she had 3 assists and 0 turnovers. She wasn't stinking it up. Shooters need to time to warm up. If anything, she looked more like the player that busted the game open against Stanford (among others).

Ariel was pivotal to the win again Mizzou among others.

 

[Darth_Vol]

Ariel has been in a slump for a few games, but she's been the 2nd best player (behind Harrison) for Tennessee this season.

For the last couple of games maybe, but for the majority of the season Burdick has been more consistent.

 

[madtownvol]

Midtownvol; I agree with you 100%. I think it took sometime adjusting to the new lineup and not having Izzy as an option. Practice is great but reality is another issue. I am so proud of how they adjusted and played well. Some may bring up the issue of our freshmen playing sketchy, however, this generally happened after the game had been decided. I applaud Holly for playing non starters so they could get some game experience. I think this is a great help to UCONN in the AAC they get to play their freshmen and bench players nearly every game. Practice is great but real game experience is so valuable in using the things learned in practice.

I agree and It seemed that the coaching staff figured that they had the degrees of freedom to experiment against Bama.

I am not sure such a wholesale change in the starting line-up was the best idea. The LvS have some established rotations for when Izzy had not been on the floor (like Ariel, Draya, Jordan, Bashaara, and Cierra); that could have been the foundation with Jamie, Nia, and Alex rotating in. I would have like them build on the established continuities rather than putting a very different line-up on the floor.

On the plus side, I liked how Nia played but she did not have to contend with a strong post player. South Carolina will provide a better gauge of life without Izzy.

 

[clkou]

We won by a lot, but to my eye we didn't play all that well. We just played hard. That is enough against Bama but won't be against SC.

Maybe. Maybe not. I think the fact that they have a home game and we don't have Izzy weighs bigger than them being an elite team. They looked pretty lack luster against UCONN and of all CURRENT teams in the top 10, they've only played 2 teams. They lost to #1 UCONN by 25 and beat #10 Duke (who has 6 losses) by 1. So, at this point, they've beat no top 10 teams by more than 1 point.

 

[madtownvol]

Maybe. Maybe not. I think the fact that they have a home game and we don't have Izzy weighs bigger than them being an elite team. They looked pretty lack luster against UCONN and of all CURRENT teams in the top 10, they've only played 2 teams. They lost to #1 UCONN by 25 and beat #10 Duke (who has 6 losses) by 1. So, at this point, they've beat no top 10 teams by more than 1 point.

Without Izzy, the LVs chances of winning have obviously gone down but, like you, I think they still have a decent of pulling off the upset road win.

As another poster highlighted, they need to be shooting well from the outside. And along with that, there floor spacing and ball movement needs to be top notch. Against Bama, they had some really good stretches, like some of Cierra's great no look passes but they also had some lazy cross-court passes that Bama picked off. If they do a lot more of the former and a lot less of the latter, I think the Lvs come out with a victory (and make a huge statement for being a #1 seed even without their anchor player).

 

[Amb3096]

For the last couple of games maybe, but for the majority of the season Burdick has been more consistent.

I don't know if I'd conclusively say that one has been more consistent than the other. They've both had games where they saved the day. They've also had their share of clunkers.

Prior to Harrison's injury, I'd have said that Ariel is the second most important player on the team because of her outside shooting, but without Izzy, Tennessee will basically live/die by what Ariel and Cierra bring to the table. Ariel needs to score and dish, Cierra needs to score and rebound.

 

[Volfan2012]

When we have Carter, Massengale, Nared, Burdick, and Graves on the floor we have a team that assists to turnover ratio is 1.50 to 1. The team as a whole has a 1.03 to 1. When we have these five players on the floor together our free throw shooting percentage is 78.5 percent with rest of team it is 75.

 

[Darth_Vol]

I don't know if I'd conclusively say that one has been more consistent than the other. They've both had games where they saved the day. They've also had their share of clunkers

The difference is Burdick generally does other things to help the team win when her shot isn't falling. Massengale is great when her shot is falling, but a significant liability when it isn't.....

 

[FrozenLVFan]

Moore is not afraid to shoot the ball, but she is too thin and light to give us much presence inside. USC game will be very tough for us now but is still winnable is we shoot well and play good defense.

Moore can be effective at the high post where she has a very nice shot, leaving Bashaara, who is much tougher, to play down low.

A good analysis. My big concern is rebounding with the loss of Izzy. I don't know if we have someone who will fill that gap and crash the boards aggressively especially on the offensive end to provide second chance points.

Burdick, Graves, Carter, and Reynolds are good for about 20 rebounds a game. Some of our bench is going to have to step it up on the boards.