Tennessee barely survives Chattanooga 59-57

[EricLA]

I'm just gonna say it. Tennessee is not a great team. Not even a very good team. I get that Chattanooga was ranked to start the season, but a loss to Indiana, and surviving Southern Miss in OT dropped them out of the top 25.

Tenn came out gangbusters in the 1st quarter and then was outplayed the rest of the game and Chatty just couldn't quite get over the hump. Tenn fans can say what they want about DD, Russell, Cooper, whatever, but as a TEAM, they just aren't that good. 3rd game in a row where they really should have walloped the opponent, instead, they escaped with a win.

Did not see the game so can't offer any insight other than their fans must be going bonkers... If this is what the most talented team since the Parker years can do, I fear for their future...

 

[VFLfan]

You aren't saying anything that the majority of us fans said and continue to say. Great 1st quarter. Awful...just awful rest of the game. We def are NOT a good team, much less a great one, right now. Sigh...

 

[chrissaran]

Maybe Holly Warlick needs to go. They don't pay her for wins. At Tennessee it's about championships.

 

[tennparker3]

Going bonkers would be an understatement.

We came out looking like a top 4 team. Suffocating defense, knocking down shots... completely overwhelming them with our athleticism. We played most of the 1st quarter with 6 players. Jones, Russell, Graves, Reynolds, Cooper and DeShields coming in for Jones. We need to shorten the bench for one. No more playing everybody stuff. With less than 2 minutes to go in the 1st quarter Holly started subbing everyone out and Chatt got some easy buckets. Momentum gone... but hey, all 12 had checked in by then.

Chatt switched to a 2-3 zone and the wholesale substitutions along with inability to make shots on the perimeter brought us down. We had a ton of open looks with decent ball movement but as the shots missed the defense lagged... same story, different game.

I will say that Holly shortens her bench in crunch time and they close it out because of it. I believe we found our lineup of DeShields, Cooper, Reynolds, Russell and Graves with the rest getting junk minutes (Dunbar and Jones should get 10-15 mins a game) and Nared will be our 6th man when she returns.

We missed soooooooo many wide open looks and then hung our heads and gave up easy buckets numerous times. At the end it was DeShields and Reynolds making great defensive plays (DeShields was teasing them with how easy she was getting steals and deflections) and DeShields starting attacked the zone with ease and created for herself and others.

I love Holly but she is not great with game plans against a zone and as of right now and that is a big problem.

I will reiterate though... we will be significantly better as the season goes on.

 

[JavaMan]

Tough times for Lady Vols and fans for sure. Things may soon change though, one Vol Nation poster recommends they should start to emulate the UConn philosophy.

"...but I have to share ths with you and the rest of the forum.. Stephanie Dolson once said something like this " Here at Uconn we prefer to Dominate and Conquer versus Surviving and winning" That is what set's Uconn apart from other teams and that is the mentality that CHW and the Lady Vols need to adapt.. You can't survive all the time you will eventually run out of lives"

 

[BroadwayVa]

You aren't saying anything that the majority of us fans said and continue to say. Great 1st quarter. Awful...just awful rest of the game. We def are NOT a good team, much less a great one, right now. Sigh...

Tenn is loaded with talent---but they have yet to play as a team. Individual performances one on one, with an occasional assist.
Who is responsible for this ?? You only get 10 guesses and they should all be the same.

 

[Charles T]

All good points but it's November, fans. Teams who struggle early may improve as the season progresses. VolNation has posters ready to fire Holly, though. How tough is the VolNation board? One posted: UConn would now beat us by 40; in a match-up where we had UConn players and Geno had TN players, he'd win by 20. Mercy. Show some loyalty....

 

[Ellie]

Going bonkers would be an understatement.

We came out looking like a top 4 team. Suffocating defense, knocking down shots... completely overwhelming them with our athleticism. We played most of the 1st quarter with 6 players. Jones, Russell, Graves, Reynolds, Cooper and DeShields coming in for Jones. We need to shorten the bench for one. No more playing everybody stuff. With less than 2 minutes to go in the 1st quarter Holly started subbing everyone out and Chatt got some easy buckets. Momentum gone... but hey, all 12 had checked in by then.

Chatt switched to a 2-3 zone and the wholesale substitutions along with inability to make shots on the perimeter brought us down. We had a ton of open looks with decent ball movement but as the shots missed the defense lagged... same story, different game.

I will say that Holly shortens her bench in crunch time and they close it out because of it. I believe we found our lineup of DeShields, Cooper, Reynolds, Russell and Graves with the rest getting junk minutes (Dunbar and Jones should get 10-15 mins a game) and Nared will be our 6th man when she returns.

We missed soooooooo many wide open looks and then hung our heads and gave up easy buckets numerous times. At the end it was DeShields and Reynolds making great defensive plays (DeShields was teasing them with how easy she was getting steals and deflections) and DeShields starting attacked the zone with ease and created for herself and others.

I love Holly but she is not great with game plans against a zone and as of right now and that is a big problem.

I will reiterate though... we will be significantly better as the season goes on.

I agree you'll be a tough out come tournament time. Too many players that haven't had enough games together to have much flow and rhythm. Loads of talent but not the experience to be considered a great T-E-A-M ... yet.

 

[BroadwayVa]

All good points but it's November, fans. Teams who struggle early may improve as the season progresses. VolNation has posters ready to fire Holly, though. How tough is the VolNation board? One posted: UConn would now beat us by 40; in a match-up where we had UConn players and Geno had TN players, he'd win by 20. Mercy. Show some loyalty....

Luckily Uconn if they played U tn would be playing that team---and you can say. Uconn would beat THEM by 40. We or Us don't have to be blamed...
I don't play for Uconn either---I'm just a terrible fan---Geno can call them We/US I have to call them UConn or THEM it saves them from being embarrassed by being associated with me.

 

[WestCoastFan]

All good points but it's November, fans. Teams who struggle early may improve as the season progresses. VolNation has posters ready to fire Holly, though. How tough is the VolNation board? One posted: UConn would now beat us by 40; in a match-up where we had UConn players and Geno had TN players, he'd win by 20. Mercy. Show some loyalty....

Loyalty to incompetence is NEVER a good thing. At this rate, they might not make their reservation for the Elite Eight defeat.

 

[trb123]

Middle of the 2Q, UT led UTC by 23. UT had blown the game apart and the hope was that UTC would give us a tough game at home.
Concerns mounted as UT went on to score 21 points in the second half. Would Jim Foster coach UT? UCONN smoking UTC was on the cards. Some apostates even admitted that UCONN would smoke UT. The absence of any talk involving Geno, UCONN and a big conspiracy left me sorely disappointed.
They do not want to play us now. PHS had the good sense to discontinue the series. And Holly wants to revive it. She must be a bad coach.

I am aware that I should not be bringing in what goes on other boards. Please excuse me and let this stand.

 

[Bestiarius]

Middle of the 2Q, UT led UTC by 23. UT had blown the game apart and the hope was that UTC would give us a tough game at home.
Concerns mounted as UT went on to score 21 points in the second half. Would Jim Foster coach UT? UCONN smoking UTC was on the cards. Some apostates even admitted that UCONN would smoke UT. The absence of any talk involving Geno, UCONN and a big conspiracy left me sorely disappointed.
They do not want to play us now. PHS had the good sense to discontinue the series. And Holly wants to revive it. She must be a bad coach.

I am aware that I should not be bringing in what goes on other boards. Please excuse me and let this stand.

It does seem that Pat's cancelling of the series did save the Lady Vols a passel of entries in the loss column.

 

[choochoo]

If I were a Vols fan I would be very worried about the lack of scoring against inferior talent!

 

[John Glass]

It is hard to analyze a game by just stats , however that never stopped me before. It looks like TN lacks consistent shooters, and good defense.

What is Holly's contract situation ?

 

[VFLfan]

Tenn is loaded with talent---but they have yet to play as a team. Individual performances one on one, with an occasional assist.
Who is responsible for this ?? You only get 10 guesses and they should all be the same.

You are preaching to the choir, brother.

 

[alexrgct]

Close games make for a narrow margin for error, which means inevitable losses for th LVs. As long as Uconn wins every game by 40+, I'll be ecstatic.

 

[HGN]

It's still early. Holly just trying to play different combos to see WHO she can count on. They have enough talent to make some noise in the SEC and NCAA Tournament. They have good individual talent but NOT a team yet. And they will get better. UT problem seems to be that everybody else is getting better too.

I have watched them play once this year. Russell is a lot better than her rookie year , Cooper is going to be a star , Graves is All Conference , and Diamond hasn't made up her mind how good she wants to be. Plays great one segment and just cruises the next. Whenever she decides to turn it on the full game it COULD put UT in the top 5 , Based on team talent and Diamond alone. She is just that good.........IMHO.

 

[bballnut90]

I'm just gonna say it. Tennessee is not a great team. Not even a very good team. I get that Chattanooga was ranked to start the season, but a loss to Indiana, and surviving Southern Miss in OT dropped them out of the top 25.

Tenn came out gangbusters in the 1st quarter and then was outplayed the rest of the game and Chatty just couldn't quite get over the hump. Tenn fans can say what they want about DD, Russell, Cooper, whatever, but as a TEAM, they just aren't that good. 3rd game in a row where they really should have walloped the opponent, instead, they escaped with a win.

Did not see the game so can't offer any insight other than their fans must be going bonkers... If this is what the most talented team since the Parker years can do, I fear for their future...

Tennessee doesn't look good, but it's still November and Tennessee has a lot of moving parts right now that need to be sorted out. Deshields is still getting back to form and the lineup is still an unknown. Once this shakes out and players get used to their roles, Tennessee could be a very solid team.

If you look around the country, outside of UCONN who is returning 4 starters from a 1 loss team, no one has been exceptional to start the year. South Carolina should have lost to UCLA, Notre Dame struggled against South Dakota State, Baylor squeaked out a win at home against USF, and FSU lost to Florida. Most of the teams that fans thought would be top teams have struggled to start the year, Tennessee is in that mix.

 

[Bayareahusky]

I was traveling back from the east coast tonight and missed the game..... how did i know this was going to be more of the same that we have seen this year.....

I do not want to pile on..... I will just say - and I do not know if others believe what I do - this TN problem is 101% the fault of the coaching staff..... they need to coach some offense. They need to get more out of their players..... OK Diamond is injured.... that is fine.... TN still has 6 other McDonald's All Americans on the roster..... Diamond makes 7...... so I do not buy the Diamond excuse, nor do I buy the "oh it is early and they have yet to gel as a team" explanation either ..... Syracuse gelled i guess, Chat gelled as a team.....
why can't the lady vols?

I don't know..... if you have 7 McDonalds All Americans on your team..... no other team you have played has more than 2 on their roster..... and you are playing these teams even..... it clearly filters down to the coaches who are not getting production out of their team.... not necessarily effort.... that is sometimes there....., but certainly not production..... I still do not believe Holly, as head coach, is settled on a methodology, a game plan, a belief, a creed through which to coach..... other than the old montre of "defense and rebounding".....

I am kind of embarrassed for them..... you never see this sort of blasé performance with, say, Muffet's team. TN, IMHO, is in desperate need of a top flite coach, or at least a very good one..... these talented young ladies deserve much better than they are getting.....

Again, just my opinion.

 

[Wbbfan1]

Margo on the Chattanooga Win

Not as optimistic as her usual video's and I don't think its her cold that causing it.

 

[Paesano]

Tenn is not even a remote threat this year. I will even say that SC is not a threat. The championship goes through ND...AGAIN...ugh. If this doesn't change soon, the women's game will suffer. It can't be the same two teams every year. It will bore the hell out of everyone.

 

[Kibitzer]

As insomnia prevailed, I lurked on VolNation and was astonished at what I read. A female poster ("IvyLeague") took everyone on in her spirited defense of Holly as HC. Her posts were articulate and often stingily argumentative. She punctuated her comments with a steady recital of facts and stats that demonstrated sharp insights about wcbb. A very good read (on "What Are Your Expectations Now?" thread).

 

[meyers7]

Maybe Holly Warlick needs to go. They don't pay her for wins. At Tennessee it's about championships.

No NO!!!! She needs to be given a lifetime contract.

 

[meyers7]

As insomnia prevailed, I lurked on VolNation and was astonished at what I read. A female poster ("IvyLeague") took everyone on in her spirited defense of Holly as HC. Her posts were articulate and often stingily argumentative. She punctuated her comments with a steady recital of facts and stats that demonstrated sharp insights about wcbb. A very good read (on "What Are Your Expectations Now?" thread).

Oh come on Kibs, she's a troll. A fun one, but a troll.

 

[meyers7]

I will reiterate though... we will be significantly better as the season goes on.

Probably, but eventually you'll have to play some top level teams too.