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Tenn trails at Missouri

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ocoandasoc, thanks for a great post about your team. Your team played hard and smart today and really had it going in the second half. Yes, I really enjoyed it.....lol.

Tennessee has to be the most snakebit team I've seen when it comes to injuries. It looks like 2 more players are out. Hopefully not for long.

There appears to be a good possibility that Tennessee will have only Spani, Massingale, Simmons, Burdick,Graves, Moore and Phillips available to play on Thursday at LSU.

Burdick only played 12 mostly unproductive minutes today clearly still hurting from her hand injury.

Moore and Phillips have played 166 minutes scoring 68 points all season. Not sure how much they can contribute.

Should be interesting to see how Warlick and the players handle the minutes. Without their pressure defense, Tennessee is not as dangerous. Can they press when they have to go 38-39 minutes?
 
Postgame quotes

Senior Forward Taber Spani

On the difference between the game in Knoxville and the game today...
"We just didn't follow the game plan. We know that they shot great, especially in their home gym, give Missouri credit. They played great, and we didn't come in with that intensity. We just didn't follow our game plan."

On factors that influenced today's loss...
"I think it was mental and physical toughness. Like I said, I think they wanted it more. Also, it was our lack of education on defending the three."
eek.gif
 
vowelguy said:
More overrated than Burdick?
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I was going to say that Burdick was at least as over rated, but Burdick has missed so much playing time that I though that might be premature. But Massengale has plenty of opportunity to show her stuff and there is no doubt in my mind about her.
 
HuskyNan said:
Postgame quotes

Senior Forward Taber Spani

On the difference between the game in Knoxville and the game today...
"We just didn't follow the game plan. We know that they shot great, especially in their home gym, give Missouri credit. They played great, and we didn't come in with that intensity. We just didn't follow our game plan."

On factors that influenced today's loss...
"I think it was mental and physical toughness. Like I said, I think they wanted it more. Also, it was our lack of education on defending the three."
eek.gif
Expand ...

I watched them screw up switching on baseline picks numerous times, with Spani committing that mistake at least one of those times.
 
HuskyNan said:
Postgame quotes

Senior Forward Taber Spani

On the difference between the game in Knoxville and the game today...
"We just didn't follow the game plan. We know that they shot great, especially in their home gym, give Missouri credit. They played great, and we didn't come in with that intensity. We just didn't follow our game plan."

On factors that influenced today's loss...
"I think it was mental and physical toughness. Like I said, I think they wanted it more. Also, it was our lack of education on defending the three."
eek.gif
Expand ...
I had to laugh at that quote, but in fairness, it's not always fair to pick on the specifics of what a player says right after a tough loss. They are only 18-22 years of age and often answering questions when emotional can sometimes be tough.

Having said that, it was Spani who said they weren't educated on defending the 3? Sounds like either poor coaching in practice, poor coaching in game prep, or poor coaching in the game-time adjustments needed... Maybe it was taking a shot at the coaching staff after they've often said the players lacked intensity and heart.
 
speedoo said:
I was going to say that Burdick was at least as over rated, but Burdick has missed so much playing time that I though that might be premature. But Massengale has plenty of opportunity to show her stuff and there is no doubt in my mind about her.
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Looks like we dodged a bullet on that one for sure...
 
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ericsandiego said:
Looks like we dodged a bullet on that one for sure...
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Remember, Massengale was a team mate of Morgan Tuck so the UConn coaches saw Masengale play a lot.. My guess is Geno never even considered offering her.
 
speedoo said:
Remember, Massengale was a team mate of Morgan Tuck so the UConn coaches saw Masengale play a lot.. My guess is Geno never even considered offering her.
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You think? you could be right but IIRC, there was a fair amount of mutual interest (maybe more so on Ariel's part) which is why they came to campus for their visit. It was shortly after that that we read/heard that UCONN was "no longer recruiting Ariel Massengale"... After thinking it over, I think you are right - Geno wouldn't have made an offer before the visit to campus and since that didn't go well, he probably never considered making offer.
 
Tough to gloat too much on a team that is getting whacked with injuries. What is the word on Harrison - could she come back this year?
On Massengale - I haven't seen enough of her to have an opinion, but I do think the situation in TN last year would mess with most freshmen's heads (as well as upper classmen.)
 
I think Geno liked her a lot, but her Dad not so much.

I'm still bullish on Massengale based on her skills. She's strong, she's quick enough and she's a pretty good shot-maker. But as I've said on this board before, she plays too passively in too many games. It's almost like she checks out. If Warlick can ever convince her to play aggressively on a consistent basis, she'll be terrific.
 
HuskyNan said:
Yes, it was the overly involved parent that was the issue.
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Nan, isn't this just speculation? I believe after Ariel's visit a reporter said from a source that it didn't go well and implied that it was her father. Her father hasn't been anything but supportive while she has been at TN and is not overly involved. I heard the reason the visit didn't go well was because UCONN wanted a decision and Ariel was still hoping to go to TN. Both are just rumors and we don't know what really happened.
 
.-.
HuskyNan said:
Postgame quotes

Senior Forward Taber Spani

On the difference between the game in Knoxville and the game today...
"We just didn't follow the game plan. We know that they shot great, especially in their home gym, give Missouri credit. They played great, and we didn't come in with that intensity. We just didn't follow our game plan."

On factors that influenced today's loss...
"I think it was mental and physical toughness. Like I said, I think they wanted it more. Also, it was our lack of education on defending the three."
eek.gif
Expand ...
Geez, 3-1/2 years of coaching, including 2-3 from an iconic HOF coach known for defense. What does it take?
 
Various sources indicated that Geno did not get along with Ariel's dad. She wanted UConn, then shopped her wares in Palo Alto, with no offer from Tara. Tennessee was next. The orange people may say that UT was her first choice, but that is simply not true. It's their delusion.

Given that, Omar Calhoun, Sr. should know to cool it. If he rubs Geno the wrong way, the offer to Sierra will disappear.
 
Jmpenn said:
Nan, isn't this just speculation? I believe after Ariel's visit a reporter said from a source that it didn't go well and implied that it was her father. Her father hasn't been anything but supportive while she has been at TN and is not overly involved. I heard the reason the visit didn't go well was because UCONN wanted a decision and Ariel was still hoping to go to TN. Both are just rumors and we don't know what really happened.
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What you heard originated on the Tenn message board and doesn't even rise to the level of a rumor. It made no sense then and makes even less sense now. Why would Geno have insisted on an on-the-spot decision? He's never done that before. I know the less-than-a-rumor from the Tenn board said that Geno wanted to nail down his 2011 class because he would have less time to recruit with his USA coaching duties. But Geno didn't insist on commitments from Brianna Banks or Kiah Stokes (who were also being recruited); nor did he subsequently pursue any other point guards in that class. If he had offered and waited he would have ended up in the same position. He was also willing to wait for commitments from Stewart, Jefferson and Tuck the following year when he was still in the middle of coaching USA Basketball.
 
MilfordHusky said:
Various sources indicated that Geno did not get along with Ariel's dad. She wanted UConn, then shopped her wares in Palo Alto, with no offer from Tara. Tennessee was next. The orange people may say that UT was her first choice, but that is simply not true. It's their delusion.

Given that, Omar Calhoun, Sr. should know to cool it. If he rubs Geno the wrong way, the offer to Sierra will disappear.
Expand ...
So it is a delusion to believe what is actually said by the player? She has said on record that TN was her dream school and I believe her. All we have here are rumors except what was actually said by the player.
 
MilfordHusky said:
Various sources indicated that Geno did not get along with Ariel's dad. She wanted UConn, then shopped her wares in Palo Alto, with no offer from Tara. Tennessee was next. The orange people may say that UT was her first choice, but that is simply not true. It's their delusion.
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Stanford? Really? I wasn't aware of that.

In terms of timing, the Massengales visited Knoxville in December before their January 2011 trip to Storrs (for the UNC game). Summitt didn't make an offer during their initial visit either. In fact, Summitt didn't make an offer to Massengale until the following August after watching her play in the U-17 championship in France. Massengale committed shortly thereafter.
 
Jmpenn said:
So it is a delusion to believe what is actually said by the player? She has said on record that TN was her dream school and I believe her. All we have here are rumors except what was actually said by the player.
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If she said Tenn was her dream school, that's good enough for me. I believe her.
 
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Jmpenn said:
So it is a delusion to believe what is actually said by the player? She has said on record that TN was her dream school and I believe her. All we have here are rumors except what was actually said by the player.
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The delusional comment refers to the UT fans who still think that they are the premier program and are going to get at least half of the top 10 recruits each year.

My sources say that Ariel really wanted UConn. How many recruits have we heard say something like "I really wanted X school, but they didn't offer, so I chose Y and I'm happy." Any? Ariel said what kids always say after the fact.
 
My best recollection was that Tennessee didn't have interest in Massengale until some time after UConn had said they weren't interested.
 
To echo what Milford said, my recollection is that after Tara passed on her, she visited Tennessee, and Pat passed. She then visited UCONN and Geno passed. Whatever her father's involvement, it did not sit well with either Pat or Geno (and possibly Tara - I never read why Stanford was not interested).

Then she played on the US national team with Burdick, and Cierra went back to Pat and helped convince her to take another look at Ariel. There were various quotes in articles talking about how much Cierra enjoyed playing with Ariel. By that time, her father probably figured it was best to keep his nose out of the recruiting since he had already rubbed Pat and Geno wrong the first time.

I'm sure there's more to it than that. I'm sure more was said and there were things going on that the casual fan wasn't aware of. At any rate, she's a solid player, and I'm sure Tennessee fans are quite happy they landed her. Just as UCONN fans are happy we landed Moriah.
 
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Husky68 said:
Interesting stat on Simmons - played 35 minutes with zero rebounds, assists, steals or blocks. Now that is hard to do.
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wow... one of the assistants who record numbers should have gotten on her about that during the game
 
We not only dodged a bullet per Massengale, we recruited Spani hard and she said NO. Thanks Taber!!!:)
 
ericsandiego said:
Game, set, match.

As much as I love seeing Tennessee go down (and believe me, I do LOVE it), I'm mindful of UCONN's near escape against a really substandard SJU team who is 10-10 on the year. I don't care if 3 of our starters were out with injuries, it's mind boggling that the game was so close for 38 minutes.

Point being I don't think you can read much in to Tenn's loss, any more than you can in their OT win over a not so great (13-9) Florida team, or their prettying up the corpse in a much more lopsided loss vs. ND than the final score indicated. As Nan pointed out, it's February and the freshmen are pretty much hitting the wall. Players are tired. It's been a long season. Crazy things have been happening in WCBB all year.
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Sure you can't really read into it, but we should just enjoy it. :)
 
Husky68 said:
Interesting stat on Simmons - played 35 minutes with zero rebounds, assists, steals or blocks. Now that is hard to do.
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It's almost as if she was not even there! wink wink. She did shoot 6 for 20 with one 3 if I recall and played alot of minutes. I thought I read she was 1 of 6 or 7 from 3 point land.
 
I actually think that if Taber Spani had stayed healthy and was in UConn's S&C program, she would had been very effective. She would get a ton of open looks from three in UConn's offense and have hit a lot of them.
 
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