bballnut90
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This was a post I made last year, although I updated some of the facts/figures on here...this is basically my plea to fire Holly as she continues to bring Tennessee to new lows:
Aside from recruiting, Holly has badly underperformed in virtually every other coaching measure, including preseason team expectations, player development, handling the duties as head coach, in game adjustments and overall eye test.
Recruiting:
I'll get the positive out of the way before we get to the good stuff. She put together a very good class in 2017 and landed a slew of players for 2018, but it's hardly a gangbuster class. She also struck out in 2015 and 2016. 2019 she has a stud in Horston on board, but neither post is expected to contribute for a year or two. I harped on her for poor recruitment overall last year, but honestly the team on paper looks pretty darn good headed into next year. A starting 5 of Westbrook, Horston, Green, Davis and Collins is very strong. That said, I don't think Holly should be getting tons of credit for her recruitment, as Tennessee is NOT a hard place to recruit to. They have better facilities, fan support, tradition, exposure and recognition than almost anyone else in the country. It isn't like Holly is recruiting all of these top players to a no name school. So many of the top kids who come to Tennessee have mentioned that it's been a lifelong dream to play for the program. They'd still be coming to Tennessee if a different coach were leading the charge. Tennessee for years was the gold standard in women's basketball, and players like Candace Parker and Tamika Catchings were/are two the most popular professional players in the world. I'm confident that anybody who Tennessee would hire to replace Holly could do a comparable or better job recruiting.
Team expectations:
Look at the steady decline in results as well as how Tennessee has fared relative to preseason expectations:
2013: Preseason #20 and 4th in SEC. Finished in the Elite 8 with a #2 seed, won the SEC regular season. By far her best season in regards to overachieving. Team was severely underestimated in preseason due to lots of graduating seniors and Pat's retirement. Earned a relatively easy draw into the Elite 8 where they lost to #5 seed Louisville. Best tournament win was on the road against a #6 seed Oklahoma. Holly's best season. Most fans (including myself) were quite pleased with results.
2014: Preseason #4 and 1st in the SEC. Finished in the Sweet 16 as a 1 seed, won the SEC Tournament Championship and finished 2nd in the regular season. Not a bad year by any means, but Tennessee was blown out by Maryland in the Sweet 16 which left a bad taste in many fans mouths. Overall the team underachieved considering high expectations coming into the season. Not a bad season though.
2015 results: Preseason #4 and #2 in the SEC. Finished 30-6, #2 seed, Elite 8 finish, co-SEC Champions.....another year that didn't end in a Final Four but wasn't a bad year overall considering the loss of Harrison midseason and there's no shame in losing in the Elite 8. Tennessee did have an easy path to an Elite 8, facing a 15 seed, 10 seed, and 11 seed before losing to Maryland. They needed a 4th quarter miracle to force OT against the 11 seed in the Sweet 16 after trailing by double digits in the 4th. Their best tournament win was against a 10 seed, Pitt, in the 2nd round. Tennessee did finish lower than expectations once again.
2016 results: Preseason #4 in the country and #2 in the SEC. Finished 22-14, 7th in the SEC, #7 seed in the NCAA tournament, Elite 8 finish....this was arguably the most disappointing season under Holly. A team that was preseason #4 entered the tournament not ranked in the top 25, lost 14 games and finished with an 8-8 record in the SEC. The post season success was the only bright spot of the year, but Tennessee on paper had more talent than anyone in the country besides Connecticut this season (who went undefeated), yet the LVs were barely a top 25 team.
2017 results: Preseason #13/14 in the country and #3 in the SEC. Finished 20-12, 5th in the SEC, #5 seed in the NCAA tournament, 2nd round finish. Despite lower expectations, Tennessee still managed to underachieve, finishing the year out of the top 25 once again and losing in the 2nd round as expected.
2018 results: Preseason #13/18 in the country and #5 in the SEC. Finished 25-8, T4 in the SEC (#7 seed in tournament), #3 seed in NCAA tournament, 2nd round finish. Tennessee lost at home in the tournament for the 1st time ever and likely would've had 10 losses and not hosted if they didn't luck into playing SC twice without A'ja Wilson. Underachieving wasn't as bad as the last 2 years, but after a strong start against a cupcake preseason schedule, Tennessee finished the year 10-8 in their last 18 games.
2019 results: Preseason #11/12 in the country and #3 in the SEC. Finished 19-13, 7-9 in SEC and tied for 8th in the SEC tournament. #11 seed in NCAA tournament (controversial they even made it) and lost in the 1st round. Tennessee set many new lows this year, including most consecutive games lost, continued their losing streak to Alabama, lost for the first time to Vandy at home (when Vandy had literally its worst team ever), 1st season without 20+ wins in 43 years, etc.
So in summary, you have 1 year of overachieving, 3 years of underachieving, and 3 years of badly underachieving.
Player Development:
She has not had 1 WBCA All American in her 6 years at Tennessee despite having the following top recruits come through Tennessee:
#1 recruit Mercedes Russell, no AA honors, never made 1st Team All-SEC, late 2nd round WNBA draft pick and a bench warmer
#2 recruit Evina Westbrook, 2 year under her belt, made SEC All Freshman team, left off both SEC teams as a sophomore while several other freshman/sophomores made a team)
#3 recruit Diamond Deshields, no AA honors, made All-SEC, played 2 seasons and then quit on bad terms. Was a standout as a rookie.
#3 recruit Cierra Burdick, no AA honors, made All-SEC(1st/2nd team) as a senior, #14 pick in the draft
#4 recruit Ariel Massengale, no AA honors, never made All-SEC, #29 draft pick
#5 recruit Bashaara Graves, no AA honors, NFOY over Breanna Stewart and Jewell Loyd, named All-SEC 1st/2nd Team as a freshman and then didn't make an All-SEC team again until she made 2nd team as a senior. #22 draft pick.
#6 recruit Jaime Nared, no AA honors, All-SEC as a senior (1st and 2nd team), 2nd team All-SEC as a junior, 2nd round draft pick, not expected to make a roster in 2019
#7 recruit Anastasia Hayes, 1 year under her belt...named SEC 6th Woman of the year and then kicked off team
#8 recruit Jannah Tucker, played 1 year and transferred
#10 recruit Zaay Green, 1 year under her belt, made SEC freshman team
Other top 30 recruits under Holly:
#13 recruit Taber Spani...played 1 season, didn't make it in the pros
#12 recruit Te'a Cooper....transferred after a disappointing freshman campaign. Developed into a top player at South Carolina under Dawn.
#24 recruit Meighan Simmons...never improved after a strong freshman season under Pat. Hasn't been able to stick in the pros
#21 recruit, Andraya Carter...never lived up to expectations and retired early
#29 recruit, Alexa Middleton...never was a strong contributor, transferred after junior season to become a standout starting PG at a top 15 team in Iowa State
#29 recruit, Isabelle Harrison....the only success story under Holly. Made great strides in college and has had a productive pro career
#12 recruit Rennia Davis....played 2 season so far, SEC All-Freshman team and made 2nd Team All-SEC as a sophomore
Out of all that talent, we've had a grand total of 2 successful pro players in Isabelle Harrison and Diamond Deshield, and I'm not sure we can even take credit for Diamond considering she transferred in and quit before using up her eligibility.
Head Coaching Duties:
Regularly in press conferences, Holly seems confused and unable to articulate what went wrong. She commonly says phrases similar to, "I told them to do this and they didn't listen" and never takes blame or comes up with valid reasons for what went wrong. She regularly throws players under the bus year after year. A coach in her position needs to have better public speaking skills and she needs to be able to articulate what went wrong when her teams routinely lose to less talented teams.
Holly does not hold her players accountable or demand their best efforts. You never see her call out individual players in press conferences, bench players who put forth poor efforts, and most of all she seems to lack any backbone.
When Diamond Deshields quit, Holly immaturely posted a smiley face on Twitter before deleting the post and then deleting her Twitter all together. What other head coach have you seen pull a similar stunt? I don't care how much she disliked Diamond or had issues with her, it is incredibly petty to post anything like that on social media. As the head coach of one of the most followed programs in the country, Holly should handle this better.
Holly's standout sophomore, Evina Westbrook, just told the press that changes are needed with the current staff following the 2019 NCAA Tournament loss. Not a good look for Holly.
In Game Adjustments:
Others can dive into this more, but her in game strategy and adjustments were abysmal. For example, in today's game at the end of the 2nd quarter, instead of holding for 1 shot Tennessee rushed their offense which ended up with UCLA having a shot to add to their lead before half. This type of thing routinely happens under Holly and you never see well coached teams make these types of mistakes. It's not rocket science...if the shot clock is off, hold the ball until the last shot so you don't give the opposing team a chance to score. Example 2: KK is having her best game of the season, scoring 16 points and doing work inside. So what does Holly do? She pulls her for Cheridene Green after KK gets her 4th with 6:45 left and keeps her out until there were about 2 minutes left. Green goes on to miss 2 close lay ups and then misses a pair of free throws. KK should've been put back into the game much earlier at the last media timeout. Small misjudgments like that can (and do) cost teams wins. Holly makes mistakes like these routinely.
Eye Test:
Here is the biggest issue IMO. Even in her best years, none of her teams have ever looked like they could compete for a championship. They simply have never looked like a true Final Four team or title contender. More over, every year the team gets worse. Anyone can see the quality of play has declined immensely the last 4-5 years. Once in a while we get some spurts of great basketball (2018 and 2019 Notre Dame first half, 2016 Sweet 16 vs. Ohio State), but overall the lack of effort put forth by Tennessee players has been noticeable since Holly took over. You rarely see anyone give 100%, you don't see players scrapping for loose balls or crashing the glass like players did under Pat. Holly has also not been able to figure out how to break a zone defense in the last 3 years. I am unsure why any coach would play anything BUT zone against Tennessee when they've had zero outside shooting and almost all of their offense comes in the paint or in the midrange game. On offense there are zero picks set, and plays are not run. Posts cannot hit layups to save their lives. This year the offense was race up the court as fast as you can to catch the defense sleeping. If you could get Tennessee caught in a half court offense, they'd inevitably chuck up a bad shot and try to pound the offensive boards. Last year everything was jam the ball inside to Russell even if it's not there. If she's taking the play off and isn't posting hard, pass the ball around on the perimeter and have a player go one on one and settle for a tough jumper late in the shot clock. Or drive to the basket and hope for a foul. Pat was not an offensive mastermind, but her teams played much better offense than Holly's do, and her players always gave best effort so Tennessee regularly had 2nd and 3rd opportunities if they didn't get a good look on the first try.
Last year I said, "unless something massive changes, we are going to be a borderline top 25 team in 2018-19. We have zero proven post players. This is the first time in my lifetime that Tennessee is going to have 0 top 5 post players on the roster. Tennessee's strength as a program has always been in having strong power forwards and centers. We don't have any next year unless we play Davis primarily as a post. Our guards show promise, but Holly is not going to help them improve skills they've struggled with (avoiding turnovers, perimeter shooting, making smart passes, shot selection, running plays, etc). I am hopeful that players will improve, but all results have shown this is unlikely to happen under Holly."
So what happened? We had our worst season ever and almost missed the tournament. After our cupcake non-conference schedule, we finished the year 7-12, highlighted by some awful losses to bottom feeders Alabama and Vanderbilt. I'll give individual players some credit for improvement (Westbrook, Davis, Green) but how I'm not sure how much of it is actual improvement vs. playing a bigger role in the offense.
Additionally, more than ever you can see how important quality coaching is in today's landscape. Geno, Muffet, Dawn, Vic, Rueck, Tara etc have all proven year after year that good coaches make good teams and they help their players reach their potential. There's a reason we've consistently seen these coaches competing in the Final Four while we haven't seen coaches like Holly, Aston, McGuff, and McCallie reach Final Fours despite having more than enough talent to compete for championships. It really does come down to coaching, and from everything we've seen the last 6 years, Holly hasn't shown any ability to be a strong coach or leader.
Here is the scary thing about our situation right now. If Holly doesn't get fired and players decide to stay, we're going to be stuck with Holly for at least a few more years. The team will be better next year with Horston coming in and Westbrook/Davis back, but the foundational problems will remain. The only difference is we might see Tennessee rely on talent to hold off teams like Georgia, Mizzou and Kentucky so we'll finish with 20-25 wins, but our ceiling is the 2nd round or Sweet 16 under Holly. We'll never compete with the big dogs even though our talent level is equivalent or superior to most of those teams. If there's ever been a time for a coaching change, this is it. We need new leadership if we want to be a top 10 program again in the next 5-10 years.
Aside from recruiting, Holly has badly underperformed in virtually every other coaching measure, including preseason team expectations, player development, handling the duties as head coach, in game adjustments and overall eye test.
Recruiting:
I'll get the positive out of the way before we get to the good stuff. She put together a very good class in 2017 and landed a slew of players for 2018, but it's hardly a gangbuster class. She also struck out in 2015 and 2016. 2019 she has a stud in Horston on board, but neither post is expected to contribute for a year or two. I harped on her for poor recruitment overall last year, but honestly the team on paper looks pretty darn good headed into next year. A starting 5 of Westbrook, Horston, Green, Davis and Collins is very strong. That said, I don't think Holly should be getting tons of credit for her recruitment, as Tennessee is NOT a hard place to recruit to. They have better facilities, fan support, tradition, exposure and recognition than almost anyone else in the country. It isn't like Holly is recruiting all of these top players to a no name school. So many of the top kids who come to Tennessee have mentioned that it's been a lifelong dream to play for the program. They'd still be coming to Tennessee if a different coach were leading the charge. Tennessee for years was the gold standard in women's basketball, and players like Candace Parker and Tamika Catchings were/are two the most popular professional players in the world. I'm confident that anybody who Tennessee would hire to replace Holly could do a comparable or better job recruiting.
Team expectations:
Look at the steady decline in results as well as how Tennessee has fared relative to preseason expectations:
2013: Preseason #20 and 4th in SEC. Finished in the Elite 8 with a #2 seed, won the SEC regular season. By far her best season in regards to overachieving. Team was severely underestimated in preseason due to lots of graduating seniors and Pat's retirement. Earned a relatively easy draw into the Elite 8 where they lost to #5 seed Louisville. Best tournament win was on the road against a #6 seed Oklahoma. Holly's best season. Most fans (including myself) were quite pleased with results.
2014: Preseason #4 and 1st in the SEC. Finished in the Sweet 16 as a 1 seed, won the SEC Tournament Championship and finished 2nd in the regular season. Not a bad year by any means, but Tennessee was blown out by Maryland in the Sweet 16 which left a bad taste in many fans mouths. Overall the team underachieved considering high expectations coming into the season. Not a bad season though.
2015 results: Preseason #4 and #2 in the SEC. Finished 30-6, #2 seed, Elite 8 finish, co-SEC Champions.....another year that didn't end in a Final Four but wasn't a bad year overall considering the loss of Harrison midseason and there's no shame in losing in the Elite 8. Tennessee did have an easy path to an Elite 8, facing a 15 seed, 10 seed, and 11 seed before losing to Maryland. They needed a 4th quarter miracle to force OT against the 11 seed in the Sweet 16 after trailing by double digits in the 4th. Their best tournament win was against a 10 seed, Pitt, in the 2nd round. Tennessee did finish lower than expectations once again.
2016 results: Preseason #4 in the country and #2 in the SEC. Finished 22-14, 7th in the SEC, #7 seed in the NCAA tournament, Elite 8 finish....this was arguably the most disappointing season under Holly. A team that was preseason #4 entered the tournament not ranked in the top 25, lost 14 games and finished with an 8-8 record in the SEC. The post season success was the only bright spot of the year, but Tennessee on paper had more talent than anyone in the country besides Connecticut this season (who went undefeated), yet the LVs were barely a top 25 team.
2017 results: Preseason #13/14 in the country and #3 in the SEC. Finished 20-12, 5th in the SEC, #5 seed in the NCAA tournament, 2nd round finish. Despite lower expectations, Tennessee still managed to underachieve, finishing the year out of the top 25 once again and losing in the 2nd round as expected.
2018 results: Preseason #13/18 in the country and #5 in the SEC. Finished 25-8, T4 in the SEC (#7 seed in tournament), #3 seed in NCAA tournament, 2nd round finish. Tennessee lost at home in the tournament for the 1st time ever and likely would've had 10 losses and not hosted if they didn't luck into playing SC twice without A'ja Wilson. Underachieving wasn't as bad as the last 2 years, but after a strong start against a cupcake preseason schedule, Tennessee finished the year 10-8 in their last 18 games.
2019 results: Preseason #11/12 in the country and #3 in the SEC. Finished 19-13, 7-9 in SEC and tied for 8th in the SEC tournament. #11 seed in NCAA tournament (controversial they even made it) and lost in the 1st round. Tennessee set many new lows this year, including most consecutive games lost, continued their losing streak to Alabama, lost for the first time to Vandy at home (when Vandy had literally its worst team ever), 1st season without 20+ wins in 43 years, etc.
So in summary, you have 1 year of overachieving, 3 years of underachieving, and 3 years of badly underachieving.
Player Development:
She has not had 1 WBCA All American in her 6 years at Tennessee despite having the following top recruits come through Tennessee:
#1 recruit Mercedes Russell, no AA honors, never made 1st Team All-SEC, late 2nd round WNBA draft pick and a bench warmer
#2 recruit Evina Westbrook, 2 year under her belt, made SEC All Freshman team, left off both SEC teams as a sophomore while several other freshman/sophomores made a team)
#3 recruit Diamond Deshields, no AA honors, made All-SEC, played 2 seasons and then quit on bad terms. Was a standout as a rookie.
#3 recruit Cierra Burdick, no AA honors, made All-SEC(1st/2nd team) as a senior, #14 pick in the draft
#4 recruit Ariel Massengale, no AA honors, never made All-SEC, #29 draft pick
#5 recruit Bashaara Graves, no AA honors, NFOY over Breanna Stewart and Jewell Loyd, named All-SEC 1st/2nd Team as a freshman and then didn't make an All-SEC team again until she made 2nd team as a senior. #22 draft pick.
#6 recruit Jaime Nared, no AA honors, All-SEC as a senior (1st and 2nd team), 2nd team All-SEC as a junior, 2nd round draft pick, not expected to make a roster in 2019
#7 recruit Anastasia Hayes, 1 year under her belt...named SEC 6th Woman of the year and then kicked off team
#8 recruit Jannah Tucker, played 1 year and transferred
#10 recruit Zaay Green, 1 year under her belt, made SEC freshman team
Other top 30 recruits under Holly:
#13 recruit Taber Spani...played 1 season, didn't make it in the pros
#12 recruit Te'a Cooper....transferred after a disappointing freshman campaign. Developed into a top player at South Carolina under Dawn.
#24 recruit Meighan Simmons...never improved after a strong freshman season under Pat. Hasn't been able to stick in the pros
#21 recruit, Andraya Carter...never lived up to expectations and retired early
#29 recruit, Alexa Middleton...never was a strong contributor, transferred after junior season to become a standout starting PG at a top 15 team in Iowa State
#29 recruit, Isabelle Harrison....the only success story under Holly. Made great strides in college and has had a productive pro career
#12 recruit Rennia Davis....played 2 season so far, SEC All-Freshman team and made 2nd Team All-SEC as a sophomore
Out of all that talent, we've had a grand total of 2 successful pro players in Isabelle Harrison and Diamond Deshield, and I'm not sure we can even take credit for Diamond considering she transferred in and quit before using up her eligibility.
Head Coaching Duties:
Regularly in press conferences, Holly seems confused and unable to articulate what went wrong. She commonly says phrases similar to, "I told them to do this and they didn't listen" and never takes blame or comes up with valid reasons for what went wrong. She regularly throws players under the bus year after year. A coach in her position needs to have better public speaking skills and she needs to be able to articulate what went wrong when her teams routinely lose to less talented teams.
Holly does not hold her players accountable or demand their best efforts. You never see her call out individual players in press conferences, bench players who put forth poor efforts, and most of all she seems to lack any backbone.
When Diamond Deshields quit, Holly immaturely posted a smiley face on Twitter before deleting the post and then deleting her Twitter all together. What other head coach have you seen pull a similar stunt? I don't care how much she disliked Diamond or had issues with her, it is incredibly petty to post anything like that on social media. As the head coach of one of the most followed programs in the country, Holly should handle this better.
Holly's standout sophomore, Evina Westbrook, just told the press that changes are needed with the current staff following the 2019 NCAA Tournament loss. Not a good look for Holly.
In Game Adjustments:
Others can dive into this more, but her in game strategy and adjustments were abysmal. For example, in today's game at the end of the 2nd quarter, instead of holding for 1 shot Tennessee rushed their offense which ended up with UCLA having a shot to add to their lead before half. This type of thing routinely happens under Holly and you never see well coached teams make these types of mistakes. It's not rocket science...if the shot clock is off, hold the ball until the last shot so you don't give the opposing team a chance to score. Example 2: KK is having her best game of the season, scoring 16 points and doing work inside. So what does Holly do? She pulls her for Cheridene Green after KK gets her 4th with 6:45 left and keeps her out until there were about 2 minutes left. Green goes on to miss 2 close lay ups and then misses a pair of free throws. KK should've been put back into the game much earlier at the last media timeout. Small misjudgments like that can (and do) cost teams wins. Holly makes mistakes like these routinely.
Eye Test:
Here is the biggest issue IMO. Even in her best years, none of her teams have ever looked like they could compete for a championship. They simply have never looked like a true Final Four team or title contender. More over, every year the team gets worse. Anyone can see the quality of play has declined immensely the last 4-5 years. Once in a while we get some spurts of great basketball (2018 and 2019 Notre Dame first half, 2016 Sweet 16 vs. Ohio State), but overall the lack of effort put forth by Tennessee players has been noticeable since Holly took over. You rarely see anyone give 100%, you don't see players scrapping for loose balls or crashing the glass like players did under Pat. Holly has also not been able to figure out how to break a zone defense in the last 3 years. I am unsure why any coach would play anything BUT zone against Tennessee when they've had zero outside shooting and almost all of their offense comes in the paint or in the midrange game. On offense there are zero picks set, and plays are not run. Posts cannot hit layups to save their lives. This year the offense was race up the court as fast as you can to catch the defense sleeping. If you could get Tennessee caught in a half court offense, they'd inevitably chuck up a bad shot and try to pound the offensive boards. Last year everything was jam the ball inside to Russell even if it's not there. If she's taking the play off and isn't posting hard, pass the ball around on the perimeter and have a player go one on one and settle for a tough jumper late in the shot clock. Or drive to the basket and hope for a foul. Pat was not an offensive mastermind, but her teams played much better offense than Holly's do, and her players always gave best effort so Tennessee regularly had 2nd and 3rd opportunities if they didn't get a good look on the first try.
Last year I said, "unless something massive changes, we are going to be a borderline top 25 team in 2018-19. We have zero proven post players. This is the first time in my lifetime that Tennessee is going to have 0 top 5 post players on the roster. Tennessee's strength as a program has always been in having strong power forwards and centers. We don't have any next year unless we play Davis primarily as a post. Our guards show promise, but Holly is not going to help them improve skills they've struggled with (avoiding turnovers, perimeter shooting, making smart passes, shot selection, running plays, etc). I am hopeful that players will improve, but all results have shown this is unlikely to happen under Holly."
So what happened? We had our worst season ever and almost missed the tournament. After our cupcake non-conference schedule, we finished the year 7-12, highlighted by some awful losses to bottom feeders Alabama and Vanderbilt. I'll give individual players some credit for improvement (Westbrook, Davis, Green) but how I'm not sure how much of it is actual improvement vs. playing a bigger role in the offense.
Additionally, more than ever you can see how important quality coaching is in today's landscape. Geno, Muffet, Dawn, Vic, Rueck, Tara etc have all proven year after year that good coaches make good teams and they help their players reach their potential. There's a reason we've consistently seen these coaches competing in the Final Four while we haven't seen coaches like Holly, Aston, McGuff, and McCallie reach Final Fours despite having more than enough talent to compete for championships. It really does come down to coaching, and from everything we've seen the last 6 years, Holly hasn't shown any ability to be a strong coach or leader.
Here is the scary thing about our situation right now. If Holly doesn't get fired and players decide to stay, we're going to be stuck with Holly for at least a few more years. The team will be better next year with Horston coming in and Westbrook/Davis back, but the foundational problems will remain. The only difference is we might see Tennessee rely on talent to hold off teams like Georgia, Mizzou and Kentucky so we'll finish with 20-25 wins, but our ceiling is the 2nd round or Sweet 16 under Holly. We'll never compete with the big dogs even though our talent level is equivalent or superior to most of those teams. If there's ever been a time for a coaching change, this is it. We need new leadership if we want to be a top 10 program again in the next 5-10 years.
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