Looking to the NCAA Tournament

#26
#26
I hear you on the calling Darby number and i agree, But against teams like SC,A&M,GA,OLD Miss LSU etc, They are gonna make it a priority to defender her with ball hawking defense like SC did on Rae. Rae is a shooter but could not shake Cooke and i was pretty surprise could not shoot over 5-9 Cooke.

That would be great. If they are swarming Tess, that means Davis or Burrell have an opening. More likely though, I think teams would dare Tess to beat them until she starts hitting shots. I can't imagine a coach shifting their defense from the LVs prime scorers to shut down an unproven freshman.
 
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#27
#27
I like our chances in the NCAA tourney. We don't play well against hard defending with lots of hacking, slapping defense. Watching the other tourneys on TV, looked like a completely different game was being played than in the SEC tourney. There was very little bumping, pushing, or riding a player all the way down the court. I made the comment last night that in the UCLA and Stanford game, they were playing Covid Protocol defense. It was like the defender wouldn't get closer than 6 feet to the offensive player. Hyperbole of course, but not by a lot. If teams play us like that, we could make a run. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
 
#28
#28
That would be great. If they are swarming Tess, that means Davis or Burrell have an opening. I think teams will dare Tess to beat them until she starts hitting shots. I can't imagine a coach shifting their defense from the LVs prime scorers to shut down an unproven freshman.

They will pull her HS videos LOL :D and say she is a shooter you think ?
 
#29
#29
A few related thoughts,

I remain unconvinced about the overall gains from pairing Key and KK. In some games, the LVs have gotten results but more often than not, it creates imbalances,. We lack an outside shooter who can spread the floor (if Kasi could hit a 3 like Boston, we might have a different story) and that set often has Kasi trying to cover guards in the perimeter which is the definition of bad mismatch and KK is a bit slow to close out on three point shooters (and that is not her fault, she is a classic wide body post being ask to play at the 4 spot).

The post's foul trouble in the Ole Miss game was a blessing in disguise because it forced Kellie to play with one post and a more guard oriented line-up and with Davis's ability to crash the boards (doing so without giving up anything).

Our best five is Key (or KK), Davis, Burrell, Horston, and Walker, then I would rotate in Salary and Suarez who seems to be moving a bit better of late. If I had to go deeper due to fouls or injuries, I would call Darby's number. She is at least a shooting threat.

Disclaimer: The following comments are more critical assessments of players (so read at your own risk):

For the free Emily crowd, she is (right now at this moment) too slow to be on the court. In her brief cameo during the Ole Miss game, she gave up baskets by not being able to track back against more mobile posts. If she wants to contribute, she has a lot of work in front of her. (Much the same for Rennie.)

Jordan Walker - I love her spirit and fight. She makes plays for the team. So there is a lot of upside here but she also makes way too many bad decisions, forcing passes, ill advised contests on taller 3 point shooters which will inevitably lead to a foul call, dribbling into the trees and getting trapped. When the LVs need a calm floor general, she too often looks like she is hitting the panic button. These problems have been going on all season so I am not sure how much can be corrected before the tournament but even a little improvement could make a big difference.

Destiny seems to have hit the freshman wall. She needs to refocus and realize that she can contribute just by being a super pesky perimeter defender, crashing the boards, and making a wide open shot here and there. Don't try to play PG, don't try to be play maker. Keep it simple and do a few things well. We have other players who can create.

Jordan Horston- mostly good stuff here. I think she needs to look for her shot a bit more. She can be as much of a scoring force as Rae. But se needs to not the take bait of not driving too deep in the lane and picking up charges. And for the tournament, I would like to see her play a little more conservative, make the good pass but don't try for the spectacular one (particularly when the LVs have the lead). Empty possessions have been killing the team.

KK and Key. Seriously eat your spinach and wheaties before every game. Play strong. No matter lackadaisical looking, toss it up toward the rim type plays. Go up strong up, exert yourselves. We have seen what you both can do when you play high energy with a level of aggression.
MT this was a really interesting discussion of your opinion as to where some of our kids are and where their development needs to go. A very positive “criticism” in that not once did you question a kid’s heart, intelligence, work ethic or worth as a human. Nor did you declare a 19 year old a “bust”. Thanks for that! (Sincerely, no blue font.)
 
#30
#30
Here's the latest College Sports Madness Women's bracketology. They have Tennessee as a #4 Seed playing #13 Milwaukee in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Here's Tennessee's opening bracket.

#4 Tennessee
#13 Milwaukee

#5 Rutgers
#12 Delaware

Women's Basketball Bracketology
 
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#33
#33
i hope and pray you are not referring to Rennia and I demand that you are not in any way blaming the SC loss on her. I thought we put the inane silliness of Davis' lack of "belly fire" to rest several games ago. When Rennia gets zero help on offense, which was the case against SC, she did epic work to score 9 pts. When the opponent can smother her with no worry about others on offense we have no chance. Even when Rennia's belly is in flames. That anyone continues to question her dedication is amazing to me, and not in a good way.

If you were actually talking about Key or Horston, please disregard this post.
I took it to be Horston when I read it. JMO.
 
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#36
#36
Only losses were to UK, Tennessee, OSU and Maryland. No bad losses. 5 wins over top 20 NET teams. Ranked #9 in the polls and #9 in the NET rankings. I'd say that their case for #3 is very solid.

Unless a previous poster was mistaken, they were 0-1 against Top 10, 4-4 against Top 25, best win #18, was beaten by three teams ranked lower (including us at their place by a handy margin and OSU who has faded). It seems that all their ranked wins have come against third tier of Top 25 (unless they beat someone in Big 10 Tournament since that post).

Not saying that they're not a good team but questioning whether they have shown results against the upper-level competition. We have more losses (all against current Top 20 teams), but we have also played more ranked opponents including 5 Top 10 games, winning two of those. And we beat IU in head to head competition on the road.

Maybe the question should have been, how are they a #3 seed and we're a #4 seed using any objective standards?
 
#41
#41
if were the four sure would like to be in the bracket as Michigan as the five. Gonzaga is the scariest of the fives on his bracket and that is who he has us facing.
I think this season's addition of the LadyVols is a Sweet 16 team and could very well lose to UConn.
 
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#42
#42
Re: IU as #3 seed...

I just checked to make sure, and IU has played exactly six currently-ranked teams and lost four of those games. They beat #13 Michigan and split with #22 OSU. They lost against their only Top 10 opponent.

Even with our playing almost twice as many currently-ranked opponents (all Top 20), we have twice as many wins against currently-ranked teams as they do, including two Top 10 wins. Our only double-digit losses were to KY without Davis, A&M, and the SC tournament loss. All others including Conn by six or less.

IU has a decent resume but only 2-4 against current top 25. Again, how have tbey earned a higher seeding than us? Because they lost less total games?

The system rewards winning even if the schedule is weaker and punishes those who face stiffer competition and loses close games. It's not the fault of some teams who had tough games cancelled (just as it wadn't our fault that we had three games cancelled in which we would have been favored). But what has IU done to demonstrate they deserve a 3 seed other than to lose to three lower seeds and beat no one ranked ahead of them?
 
#43
#43
Unless a previous poster was mistaken, they were 0-1 against Top 10, 4-4 against Top 25, best win #18, was beaten by three teams ranked lower (including us at their place by a handy margin and OSU who has faded). It seems that all their ranked wins have come against third tier of Top 25 (unless they beat someone in Big 10 Tournament since that post).

Not saying that they're not a good team but questioning whether they have shown results against the upper-level competition. We have more losses (all against current Top 20 teams), but we have also played more ranked opponents including 5 Top 10 games, winning two of those. And we beat IU in head to head competition on the road.

Maybe the question should have been, how are they a #3 seed and we're a #4 seed using any objective standards?

I think that ultimately, a tough SOS doesn't help you in seeding decisions like UT vs. IU if you don't win those games against tough teams. And the SOS between the two teams (at least according to Massey) isn't overwhelmingly in Tennessee's favor: #28 vs. #44. So it boils down to # of losses and how the team is trending. I don't think IU has lost for quite some time, so that helps them there, and we're looking at 4 losses vs. 7 losses. As long as they make the final of the B10 tournament, I think they have the #3 seed locked up and they probably deserve it.
 
#44
#44
We will soon find out if they deserve it. Let's see how they fare against MD in the rematch.
 
#46
#46
After this weekend's tournaments, the Lady Vols dropped from 13 to 14 in the NCAA NET ratings, essentially swapping places with UGA, which seems fair. At this point they're 2-2 against the NET top 10, 4-7 against the NET top 25, and 8-7 against the top 50 (i.e. no losses outside the top 25), with #3 South Carolina as their best win.

Compare that to the teams on the 3-line in Charlie Creme's latest bracketology:
- Georgia: 0-2 vs. top 10, 5-4 vs. top 25, 7-5 vs. top 50, and 1 loss outside the top 50. Best win = #12 TAMU.
- Indiana: 0-1 vs. top 10, 4-4 vs. top 25, 5-4 vs. top 50, and no losses outside the top 25. Best win = #18 Michigan.
- Arizona: 3-3 vs. top 10, 3-3 vs. top 25, 6-4 vs. top 50, and 1 loss outside the top 50. Best win = #8 UCLA.
- UCLA: 3-2 vs. top 10, 4-3 vs. top 25, 5-5 vs. top 50, and no losses outside the top 50. Best win = #1 Stanford.

Hard to argue against UCLA, but I think the Lady Vols would have to at least be in conversation with the others as competition for that 3 seed.

Indiana still has the Big 10 tournament yet to go.

Revisiting this in light of the dialogue about Indiana vs. UT. With Baylor's win over WVU last night, that actually boosted Iowa St. in the NET ratings (presumably due to their win over Baylor), displacing Iowa from the top 25...so now you have:

Tennessee (#14 NET): 2-2 against the NET top 10, 4-7 against the top 25, 8-7 against the top 50. Best win = #4 South Carolina; worst loss = #23 West Virginia. Last 10 games: 6-4.
Indiana (#9 NET): 0-1 against the NET top 10, 2-4 against the top 25, 5-4 against the top 50. Best win = #18 Michigan; worst loss = #22 Ohio State. Last 10 games: 9-1.

Even though Tennessee has better and more (quality) wins against a tougher schedule, Indiana seems to benefit from playing a slightly weaker schedule and having fewer overall losses, a better NET rating, and a better record down the stretch (but again, against much weaker competition). I also think when tournament resumes are this close, you have to acknowledge that Tennessee won the head-to-head - especially that they did it on the road.

Agree with others who've noted the Big 10 tournament will play a role in how several teams on the 3-5 line end up being seeded.
 
#47
#47
Stats I found interesting...

Suarez and Walker average more rebounds per minute played than KK.

Horston needs to work on shot selection; she only shoots 4% better from the field than she does on 3 pointers.

Horston has by far the best A:TO ratio; maybe she's a better PG than I thought.

Key, maybe our most important player in determining whether we win or lose big games, averages a foul out. She fouls once every 7.5 minutes, which is 5.3 per 40 minute game.

Burrell currently shoots one 3p per quarter and is over 40% on the season. I think we should find a way to double that; find a way to make sure she's shooting an average of at least two 3ps per quarter.
 
#48
#48
Some more stats...

We are in the bottom 12% of 3p attempts per game and bottom 8% of the % of our shots taken that are 3s. We need to open this up.

Our turnover rate is actually about average (in the 54th percentile). Still huge room for improvement.

We rebound over 40% of our missed shots, which is elite!

We rebound over 73% of our opponent's missed shots, which is elite!

We go to the FT line much less than average (29th percentile), which is strange considering that we do not shoot many 3's. Need to work on drawing fouls.
 
#49
#49
i hope and pray you are not referring to Rennia and I demand that you are not in any way blaming the SC loss on her. I thought we put the inane silliness of Davis' lack of "belly fire" to rest several games ago. When Rennia gets zero help on offense, which was the case against SC, she did epic work to score 9 pts. When the opponent can smother her with no worry about others on offense we have no chance. Even when Rennia's belly is in flames. That anyone continues to question her dedication is amazing to me, and not in a good way.

If you were actually talking about Key or Horston, please disregard this post.
Be assured glv98, I was not by any stretch of the imagination referring to Reinna Davis. She is remarkable. How you could in any way think my post was about Davis, is amazing to me.
 
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#50
#50
Be assured glv98, I was not by any stretch of the imagination referring to Reinna Davis. She is remarkable. How you could in any way think my post was about Davis, is amazing to me.
Sorry to jump to conclusions, I'm a bit sensitive on this subject. Unfortunately, amazing as it is, this is the kind of post we see around here all the time regarding Davis.
 
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