Tennessee (merged threads)

[Fairfield Fan]

Trying to soft-peddle Tennessee's, and Pat's and Wharlick's failures. This statement is nonsense:

"But look at the broader picture and realize that the run of dominance the Lady Vols were on just wasn’t sustainable. Tennessee has been plenty successful since 2000 and has even won back-to-back championships since then."

Well, Connecticut has had a long run of dominance during that same period in which other universities have created great women's basketball programs. UConn hasn't suffered through a period of eight straight years of failing to make the final four, as has Tennessee. So the suggestion that Tennessee had to decline as the WCBB landscape "evened out" is hogwash.

Further, suggesting, as this author does, that "Tennessee is still the most prestigious program" is absurd. Just begin to tick off the superlatives for UConn and Geno Auriemma and you see that Connecticut is by far the "most prestigious program" in women's basketball, and has been for years: three longest winning streaks in WCBB history; 200 weeks at #1 in the nation in the polls, compared with 136 weeks for UT; undefeated in ten NC games; highest winning percentage of any coach in WCBB history. I'll just stop there.

The bottom line is that neither Pat nor Holly was getting the best out of the talent they had, new talent is taking a pass on Tennessee, and while new programs are coming into prominence (Louisville, South Carolina, a resurgent Notre Dame), Connecticut hasn't suffered the same decline as has Tennessee. Connecticut's "run of dominance" hasn't been affected by those other programs' success.

The problem is in Knoxville, not in the evolution of the women's game.

 

[Icebear]

"Well, Connecticut has had a long run of dominance during that same period in which other universities have created great women's basketball programs. UConn hasn't suffered through a period of eight straight years of failing to make the final four, as has Tennessee. So the suggestion that Tennessee had to decline as the WCBB landscape "evened out" is hogwash."

In fact UCONN holds the record for consecutive Final Fours.

 

[huskyd]

Can I have a nickel for every word written this season about TN on the BY? A few days ago more than 10,000 folks viewed the latest carnage. The Bone Yard has metamorphosized into the Grave Yard for the Vols. With the graves come the dancing shoes. Marc Antony's contribution: "I come to bury the Vols, not to praise them." The Roman crowd is appeased by Antony, but still attends the gladiatorial slaughters later that afternoon. Can this blood lust ever be sated? Keep those nickels coming.

 

[HoopsFan21]

C'mon guys. Everyone knows that women's basketball didn't exist until Pat Summitt invented it. If it weren't for her Geno would be selling shoes somewhere in New Jersey.

I know that to be true because I read it on an orange message board.

That's one of the most annoying things you read - that without Pat there would be no Geno. Give me a break. Geno started at UConn in 1985 and got into the coaching business in 1978 just 4 years after Summitt. Where was women's basketball when Geno started at UConn? No where. It wasn't on TV. ESPN was still in its infancy. The internet was still more than a decade away. Smartphones were still two decades away. People with orange blinders act like Geno walked into some amazing situation in Storrs provided to him because of the yellow brick road that Summitt paved. Geno has done just as much as Summitt for the game by creating a product that people actually want to watch. Nobody wanted to watch the Vols until UConn came along.

 

[UcMiami]

Nan - very well written response! I do think he is trying to be a voice of reason in a universe of panic in TN, and he certainly lays this season at the feet of the coaching pretty firmly.

And I do think it is a valid point he is making, that no one is likely to build what Pat built, nor what Geno built in the modern environment. Too many girls now take athletics seriously so the pool of talent (for all the coaching complaints) has greatly expanded, too many schools take WCBB seriously and support it, and too many good coaches see a living to be made in WCBB , to be able to build and sustain dominance for decades the way both Pat and Geno have. The same thing happened in Men's college basketball 40 years ago and no one will ever be able to approach the records Wooden compiled in his decade of domination. Coach K and his record become the new standard at which to aim, because Wooden's is just not possible.

 

[pinotbear]

C'mon guys. Everyone knows that women's basketball didn't exist until Pat Summitt invented it. If it weren't for her Geno would be selling shoes somewhere in New Jersey.

Is that better or worse than selling watches on the streets of Manhattan?

 

[HuskyNan]

Can I have a nickel for every word written this season about TN on the BY? A few days ago more than 10,000 folks viewed the latest carnage. The Bone Yard has metamorphosized into the Grave Yard for the Vols. With the graves come the dancing shoes. Marc Antony's contribution: "I come to bury the Vols, not to praise them." The Roman crowd is appeased by Antony, but still attends the gladiatorial slaughters later that afternoon. Can this blood lust ever be sated? Keep those nickels coming.

It's whistling past the graveyard. UConn fans fear for a future without Geno and really don't want to see a similar slide by the Huskies. It's easier to blame the LV's troubles on one or two people or circumstances beyond the team's control but fans know that the product we see today will be very different after Geno retires.

 

[uconnever]

if the kids buy into holly, they will be fine next year. if they buy in and next year is anything like this year, its the coaching. i hope they give her a chance, but i think its unlikely. like nan said its the chemistry, but i still think they deserve time to develop it. to me im thinking maybe the chemistry is bad off the court also and that would be a bigger problem. to me, Tea improving as the lead guard and a player that is a three point specialist could solve most of their problems along with a little added chemistry.

 

[meyers7]

My image of you is that of a Union veteran who, 75 years after Appomattox, still thinks that it is every Northerner's patriotic duty to hate all Southerners.

From what I've read, there weren't too many of those people. But I'm sure there were a few.

No actually I used to live in Georgia. Loved the people there. Got nothing to do with north/south. It's all about TN.

 

[EricLA]

Any where I can find the Tenn-Bama game replay? Thanks

Probably locked away in the Tennessee vaults under the caption "What * just happened...!"

 

[EricLA]

btw Diamond deserved all the hype... she's a real talent, ask Geno

Which makes her awful season and attitude problems that much more magnified. She's physically gifted, but not a good basketball "player" IMHO...

 

[CL82]

It's whistling past the graveyard. UConn fans fear for a future without Geno and really don't want to see a similar slide by the Huskies. It's easier to blame the LV's troubles on one or two people or circumstances beyond the team's control but fans know that the product we see today will be very different after Geno retires.

Disagree.

The Lady Vols launched a mean spirited attack against UConn and it's players... and even some BY posters. The famous 62 (or whatever) page complaint filled with half truths and outright lies resulted in exactly one sanction being levied against UConn - a secondary violation (which is in essense just an administrative warning) for making a telephone call to ESPN to see if Maya could attend a publicly available tour. Having failed at a fairly tortured effort to get the NCAA to sanction UConn, the Tennessee program went on a public smear campaign to try to damage the program with smear and innuendo. Tennessee's main fan board, The Summitt, reflected and amplified the university's smear campaign. It was a litany of ugly rumour and accusation.

For those of us who have been around long enough to remember all of that, it left us a little jaded toward the Vols. It's no surprise, then, that this board is a little predisposed to schadenfreude toward the Lady Vols. It has nothing to do, in my opinion, with a fear for UConn's future, rather it is just a well deserved dislike toward the program and some of it's fans. Respect for what they've achieved? Absolutely. A bit of a smirk regarding their current circumstances? Well, all things considered, it is tough to blame anyone for that.

 

[huskyd]

It's whistling past the graveyard. UConn fans fear for a future without Geno and really don't want to see a similar slide by the Huskies. It's easier to blame the LV's troubles on one or two people or circumstances beyond the team's control but fans know that the product we see today will be very different after Geno retires.

This is an interesting slant. I, too, was thinking that UConn fans live in a perhaps unspoken dread of what will befall us once Geno leaves. Will we be the LV's demise redux? No one knows the answer to that one. I suppose the real question is: is Geno irreplaceable? (Is Pat?) If the work of the great coaches can't be replicated, what's to become of the current high standard of a team like the Huskies? Two points: it's been argued that everyone knows the formula for basketball success, but not everyone can translate it into every situation. Also: the days of the dominant WCBB programs is about to become history because the quality of players is improving such that the result will be greater parity in the game. Besides The Shadow, who knows s'up. I'm a tad old to worry about any of this, though it's interesting.

 

[Carnac]

Would have been nice to tip the cap to the historical powers Old Dominion, La Tech, USC, and Texas. And Stanford has been a top program for a couple decades, not just the last few years.

I'm not sure I buy the premise of the article, though. It's not just the rise of other programs; Tennessee's slide has an awful lot to do with coaching, both PHS and HW, and a lot to do with recruiting. Geno says that there aren't as many kids in each class that he thinks are recruitable, due to the issue Rhonda Rompola brought up, but the LV coaches obviously don't agree and they appeared to sign talent without regard to team chemistry. If it were simply a matter of there being more talented teams to compete with the LVs then Tennessee should have been able to beat less talented teams but lose to the more talented ones. That's not the case here.

The coaching is bad at Tennessee and so is the chemistry. There needs to be a new coach and that coach needs to find kids that are willing to wholeheartedly buy into the coach's system, whatever that may be. Until then, hiding behind the excuse that Tennessee isn't able to keep up with more talented teams (how many teams are more talented than this year's LV squad?) is just avoiding the fact that the foundation of the program is shaky and needs to be shored up. It needs to be done soon or the shine will be off the LV name and kids will no longer even look at Tennessee as a destination.

Well said Nan.

 

[cbraarj]

The only way there would of been no Geno.If there was never a James Naismith!

 

[DaddyChoc]

UConn fought back after being down early and I wondered if the Lady Vols would have just packed it up and went thru the motions.

I wasn't worried about UConn against Tulane cause UConn was basically beat themselves, Tulane wasn't doing anything spectacular (besides hitting their shots)

the teamwork, togetherness, composure, determination, and the desire to win really showed today.

reason I mention Tennessee, with all that talent... even with just Graves,Russell and Deshields they shouldnt be losing to Arkansas, Alabama and LSU, even on a bad day (like UConn's start against Tulane. Even if we think the coach stink the players should have a enough to pull out the win regardless. Sometimes you have to wonder if they are "throwing the games".

I was impressed with UConn today against Tulane.

 

[Sonny44]

Can I have a nickel for every word written this season about TN on the BY? A few days ago more than 10,000 folks viewed the latest carnage. The Bone Yard has metamorphosized into the Grave Yard for the Vols. With the graves come the dancing shoes. Marc Antony's contribution: "I come to bury the Vols, not to praise them." The Roman crowd is appeased by Antony, but still attends the gladiatorial slaughters later that afternoon. Can this blood lust ever be sated? Keep those nickels coming.

Agree, we are obsessed with them. As I've posted several times the hate does not do us proud.

 

[vtcwbuff]

If Auriemma was selling them they would be Santoni or Ferragamo and they wouldn't be knock offs.

 

[Plebe]

I didn't watch the Alabama game, but from what I read and heard, Tennessee just missed a ton of easy and makeable shots. Kinda like what UConn did in the 1st quarter against Tulane, except Tennessee did it for most of the game.

I don't get the impression that they're intentionally losing the games. I just think they're so horribly unconfident at this point, and just not engaged and not connected with each other. Their defense hasn't been all that bad, really, but their rebounding is nowhere near where it should be, and their offense is just the poster child of dysfuctionality.

So yes, I concur. Tennessee could certainly take a loss to Tulane, which is IMO a better team than Arkansas, LSU and Bama.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

I home and home series, Tennessee would have lost multiple games to South Florida, Temple, and Tulane. At least in the second half of the season. No question.

 

[EricLA]

I tend to agree with Plebe - I saw that Cooper and Deshields were something like 1-16 in their last game leading maybe some to speculate that they are purposely throwing away the season so that Holly would get fired. Also there's a very long thread on Volnation started by a guy who claims to have inside knowledge of the family. He said if Holly comes back next year, Diamond is gone.

It is a messy, cancerous, toxic situation there, and certainly a dangerous one for the administration. DD is nowhere near the star that Carmelo, Lebron, Curry, etc. are. There is NO scenario in WCBB that a player can force a coach out, unless that coach committed some sort of grievous act or was a bigot like Portland was/is. I hope Holly stays, if for no other reason than to see how Tennessee does once the toxic player(s) are gone...

 

[EricLA]

I home and home series, Tennessee would have lost multiple games to South Florida, Temple, and Tulane. At least in the second half of the season. No question.

You could throw in Memphis and a healthy ECU...

 

[Fairfield Fan]

if the kids buy into holly, they will be fine next year. if they buy in and next year is anything like this year, its the coaching. i hope they give her a chance, but i think its unlikely. like nan said its the chemistry, but i still think they deserve time to develop it. to me im thinking maybe the chemistry is bad off the court also and that would be a bigger problem. to me, Tea improving as the lead guard and a player that is a three point specialist could solve most of their problems along with a little added chemistry.

No AD would permit the coach to return after a disaster like this season. Wharlick will leave soon after the season ends. Without a strong group of recruits to suggest that next season will be better, or even different, from this season, there is no reason to continue betting on Pat's successor. This is Wharlick's fourth full season as head coach, following three decades as Pat's top assistant. This season is not a learning season. The school expected continued excellence; instead, they've experienced the worst season in Tennessee BB's history. They are going with someone else for 16/17.

 

[CocoHusky]

The take away from the Tulane game and a comparison to TN is not in the shooting numbers. Everyone (even UCONN) misses shots. What was remarkable for UCONN and something TN is not capable off is 5 turnovers for the game and 1 in the first half. Lady Vols average 17 turnovers per game.

 

[UcMiami]

DC - an interesting post, but I think if you actually look at the flow of the games TN plays the situation is very different - they can play really well in two or three quarters of any game and be a complete basket case in the others, and which quarters they crumple in vary from game to game - they have not showed up for the first half and then made furious comebacks in the second, or stayed in the locker room for the third quarter and stormed back in the fourth. Or played a strong game through 3 quarters and thrown away a double digit lead in the fourth. There is no consistency in how they lose, so they could very easily have stunk up a first quarter like Uconn did, and tied the score before half time, only to throw it away again in the last two minutes of the fourth.

TN was down 10 to LSU for example at half time, played a strong 3rdQ and were up 3 with ten seconds to play and up 1 with 1 with five second and shooting free throws, and contrived to lose to a team with no timeouts rebounding the ball with 3 seconds left 90 feet from the basket. That is a team that can right the ship, and still sail it into the rocks the next second.