LSU-Tennessee game (merged thread)

[Bayareahusky]

Volfan - good insightful post.... and lot of others on this page of the thread..... interesting to get the different perspectives..... however you shake it out.... the issues in KVille it seems to boil down to COACHING some form or fashion..... imagine ......"we didn't play for whatever reason for 34 minutes..... only then did we bear down" or "didn't focus on coaching offense because were focusing on defense" something like that..... these coaches need to teach fundamentals..... without that there is NOTHING to build on!!!

 

[RockyMTblue2]

I wont kill you lol and you do have talent as does Stanford Duke MD Ohio St Cal and Penn St and UConn beat them all and for the most part without KML and Tuck. Tenn even if they straighten out some of their problems can compete with UConn. The teams above couldn't when UConn was missing 2 very good and key players. Don't kid yourself this season no one can compete with UConn. As far as Wilson goes. If I were the Wilsons and read your posts I wouldn't consider Tenn. Now just hope the Wilsons don't read the Summit or Vol Nation boards. Tenn SC and UNC have all said the same thing. IF Wilson comes they could make the FF or win a NC. UConn is thinking with her and possibly without her theyre going to win NC. That's a big difference. Hey UConn won NC without EDD. The spread between UConn and everybody else is huge right now and will be next season too. Like I said in others threads Tenn is a top 10 team not a top 5 team. They have the talent but that talent isn't developed and continues to make the same mistakes year after year. When Tenn can go out there and plummet some top 10 teams I will believe they are ready for the FF. But then again Stanford and ND are the only OOC teams in the top 10 and Kentucky possibly. That's not a competitive schedule to talk about competing with UConn. Tenn has to many "IFs" as you have just mentioned in your post to compete with UConn ND and Duke.

Ah Tony, you had the PARAGRAPH thing going and then POOF!

 

[RockyMTblue2]

"Also: A'ja Wilson has really enjoyed Knoxville. It's an elite program that she could bring back that is still comparable driving distance in comparison to UNC and USC. Her being a Lady Vol could happen! "

Vol Fan - with all due respect, she could help bring it back, but she couldn't do it by herself....Holly needs to work out some other issues, and then, IF you get your wish it is POSSIBLE A'ja could help acomplish what you hope for.

I would add that any elite HS baller should be self aware enough to know that there is a tremendous amount you can learn and grow from in the right college program. What Tennessee is busy demonstrating is that there are major deficits in the training of their players. That would not interest me if I was an elite athlete. I would want to learn from my team mates, not have to come in and be expected to carry them.

 

[Boxerpups4me]

One thing that killed our defense was this. Somehow, some way, Mercedes and Izzy kept ending up having to try and close out from the paint all the way to three point line on open shooters. If we're playing man, they shouldn't be doing that. If we're playing zone they shouldn't be doing that. No reason at all for it. Secondly, there was no help on Ballard. Third, our first half rebounding was atrocious. We could have put the game away in the first half solely by getting defensive boards. Holly hit the nail on the head when she said to some extent that they work on these things in practice and in games they just don't transfer it to the court. This team seems to lack focus on the gameplay every game until it's too late(see the comebacks against Stanford and LSU) I do not lack faith in Holly. Right now, it's on the players. Eventually it comes down to not blaming the coach anymore. If they can't box out and stay on their man, then shut it down and say E8 bound for the 4th time in a row. I think the difference in this team going forward has to be Ariel (who had another pts and assists double double against LSU) She needs to hold everybody more accountable as the PG of this team. Meighan also needs to grow up and be a senior leader or take a seat on the bench and watch. Lastly, the biggest hurt to us on offense is this: the wing position. Burdick not so much, but Jasmine Jones never makes good decisions on offense it seems. If she could quit being so timid with the ball on that end of the floor, the entire offense would move better. The encouraging thing about the rest of the season is that we have fixable problems that we can still address. The scary thing about this season is that we have had very fixable problems hat we have yet to fix. This team's potential is so high. We have the talent to compete (don't kill me) with even UConn. But we also lack focus and discipline. We'll see how Georgia pans out Also: A'ja Wilson has really enjoyed Knoxville. It's an elite program that she could bring back that is still comparable driving distance in comparison to UNC and USC. Her being a Lady Vol could happen!

Nice analysis and I agree, especially with Jasmine Jones. When she comes in the game, I know she will probably turn the ball over within a couple of minutes of being in the game. Her ball handling is poor, but she does play really good defense and was the main spark for our comeback attempt against LSU. As far as Aja is concerned, I can't help but think that our poor performance against LSU didn't help sway her decision to come to Knoxville in any positive light. I will say that Aja is a very grounded person and down to earth. You can tell that her parents did a great job raising her the right way, so whoever lands her will have a great kid to work with for four years