Tennessee

[DefenseBB]

As I have written a few times, not too many teams save SC, Stanford, UConn could have played the same schedule as Tenn and done much better than 2-4. I mean tOSU, Indiana and UCLA are all very good. The first 2 are every bit worthy of a top 8 ranking and UCLA is somewhere in 10-16 range. Add in a well-coached Gonzaga team whose own coach will get a P5 job sooner rather than later. As @amb3096 has said, the remaining SEC schedule will allow for Tenn to rack up good Quadrant 1 wins but is also right that to make progress in the NCAAT, they will have to be a few top teams at some point.

 

[Gamecockfan77]

Warlick was the right hire at the time. I think she deserved the chance for the job. It's too bad that she ended up not being a good fit.

I'm sure I'll get grief from VN for this, but...I was not a fan of hiring Kellie. She was a journeyman coach without a stellar CV. She had that one good run with MoSt to the S16, but that was really the highlight of her career. That accomplishment should have set her up as a candidate for an up-and-coming P5, but not Tennessee. They should have gone big and went for either one of the current coaching greats, or a HC that was on their way to becoming great. And they should have been prepared to pay top dollar for it the way LSU and Texas did.

Whenever the time comes that a new coach is to be hired, I hope that they have "best coach, period." as their top priority.

It was strange to hire someone at Tennessee that had already flunked a P5 chance.

 

[Gamecockfan77]

As I have written a few times, not too many teams save SC, Stanford, UConn could have played the same schedule as Tenn and done much better than 2-4. I mean tOSU, Indiana and UCLA are all very good. The first 2 are every bit worthy of a top 8 ranking and UCLA is somewhere in 10-16 range. Add in a well-coached Gonzaga team whose own coach will get a P5 job sooner rather than later. As @amb3096 has said, the remaining SEC schedule will allow for Tenn to rack up good Quadrant 1 wins but is also right that to make progress in the NCAAT, they will have to be a few top teams at some point.

We'll see but I think 2-4 is 2-4 and suggests they'll lose conference games that looked like wins on paper.

I give them lots of credit for scheduling though. I don't think the losses hurt them much, but it think it maybe shows the blueprint.

 

[UConnCat]

I think the worst bit was after the buzzer sounded and the game was over. Rickea Jackson stomped her feet, walked past teammate Tamari Key’s outstretched hand, and went straight off the court to the locker room. No looking at the coach, no high-fiving a teammate, and no sportsmanship of good games to Gonzaga after.

Walker probably should have passed the ball but Jackson's reaction and her body language are not good.

 

[TheGOAT23]

Not a good look by Jackson. Don’t show up your teammates. Yes, she should have passed it. After the travel call, RJ blew the put back bunny though. I know that it wouldn’t have counted, but maybe that’s why JW took it to the basket. ??Glad that Geno doesn’t allow that nonsense. What Geno would love and what I see UCONN doing is what Puckett did. She went over and patted Walker on the back. Sorta like a “Pick Me Up Bouquet”.

 

[cancontent]

Walker probably should have passed the ball but Jackson's reaction and her body language are not good.

This feels more like a trolling tweet by BallOut more than anything to me. What good does this do? And in the end, the clip used also shows Jackson more in a negative light and furthers that narrative that she's about herself. Hurts more than helps in the end.

 

[amb3096]

That's been a problem with Powell and Walker all season. They don't look to pass on fast breaks. Rickea's frustration was justified, but she probably could have just given a stern look and Walker could have diffused that with the typical "pat chest and say 'my bad'

 

[TheGOAT23]

That's been a problem with Powell and Walker all season. They don't look to pass on fast breaks. Rickea's frustration was justified, but she probably could have just given a stern look and Walker could have diffused that with the typical "pat chest and say 'my bad'

That’s a huge problem when you’re not good at finishing. Was Walker like that last season? I can’t remember.

 

[LwrcasefaN]

Not a good look by Jackson. Don’t show up your teammates. Yes, she should have passed it. After the travel call, RJ blew the put back bunny though. I know that it wouldn’t have counted, but maybe that’s why JW took it to the basket. ??Glad that Geno doesn’t allow that nonsense. What Geno would love and what I see UCONN doing is what Puckett did. She went over and patted Walker on the back. Sorta like a “Pick Me Up Bouquet”.

I kind of get Rickea's frustration on this one. Walker made an easy fastbreak difficult for nothing. And I think it points to why Tennessee is having a rough time right now. Not enough assists and too much one-on-one. The defense knows the ball handler probably isn't going to give it up. I wonder how many charges TN has been called for.

 

[LwrcasefaN]

That’s a huge problem when you’re not good at finishing. Was Walker like that last season? I can’t remember.

Walker has been all over the place. Sometimes she's confident and sometimes she just looks dejected. She looks checked out this year.

 

[LwrcasefaN]

That's been a problem with Powell and Walker all season. They don't look to pass on fast breaks. Rickea's frustration was justified, but she probably could have just given a stern look and Walker could have diffused that with the typical "pat chest and say 'my bad'

I agree, but I think someone needed to rip the TN point guards a new one. At this point, by any means necessary short of throwing blows.

 

[JellyBean]

That's been a problem with Powell and Walker all season. They don't look to pass on fast breaks. Rickea's frustration was justified, but she probably could have just given a stern look and Walker could have diffused that with the typical "pat chest and say 'my bad'

Great points. Both players were frustrated. They just should have hidden it better.

 

[amb3096]

That’s a huge problem when you’re not good at finishing. Was Walker like that last season? I can’t remember.

She was, unfortunately. Plays really, really hard...but her court awareness/decision making is not good.

 

[amb3096]

I agree, but I think someone needed to rip the TN point guards a new one. At this point, by any means necessary short of throwing blows.

It's been going on all season. Coaches need to be the one to fix that.

 

[JellyBean]

When the season started. Heck before the season started, with the talent that Tennessee had, I penciled them in for the Final Four. Coach Harper is a pretty decent coach. I figured if the players bought in, listened, put their egos on the back burner, the Lady Vols were going to be a tough match up. Right now, they are struggling. But the cool part, there is still time for them to figure things out.

​

 

[amb3096]

When the season started. Heck before the season started, with the talent that Tennessee had, I penciled them in for the Final Four. Coach Harper is a pretty decent coach. I figured if the players bought in, listened, put their egos on the back burner, the Lady Vols were going to be a tough match up. Right now, they are struggling. But the cool part, there is still time for them to figure things out.

​

Helps that the SEC is weak this year. They'll win most of their games there and hopefully pick up a surprise win against Stanford, UConn or SC. They need to get back to basics.

 

[JellyBean]

Helps that the SEC is weak this year. They'll win most of their games there and hopefully pick up a surprise win against Stanford, UConn or SC. They need to get back to basics.

You just said that the SEC is weak this year? Interesting. My view is, SEC is going to be a battle royal if teams are not on their A game. Some teams are going to get tagged. Sleep on Auburn or Vandy if you want too. They might shock a few teams in the SEC.

 

[donalddoowop]

Once Tennessee starts playing together, they will be really good. Maybe I should say, if they start playing together.

 

[EricSD]

There’s still a question mark about pg, but this is a substantial collection of talent. They ought to be able to make a run. Rickea brings one thing they lost last season, a quick big girl. The cost of being so tall across the lineup has always been slow feet, but that’s not true anymore. A healthy Horston and Rickea make a formidable offensive pair.

It is? How is it a substantial collection of talent? Horston and Jackson were top 5 recruits coming out of HS. I watched Pissot play this summer and was shocked she skyrocketed up to 11 in ESPN's rankings. she's more a 25-30 kid, but that's just my opinion.

Every other recruit on that team was outside the top 40 coming out of HS. Except Hollingshead who was 37. Key was 47. Powell was 73. Most of the recruits for Tennessee who Harper landed were in the 40's or 50's. It's a solid team but not a team filled with a substantial collection of talent.

BTW I'm not picking on you - TONS of people, including the so-called experts - were giddy at Tennessee's prospects this season given "all their talent".

I will admit that Horston and Jackson are individually talented, and Powell is MUCH better than her ranking coming out of HS. But you have a team that actually seems to have negative chemistry, 2 alpha-dog players who don't seem to want to co-exist together, zero offensive teaching over the summer or the 1st 2 months of the season, and this is what you get.

IMHO Tennessee has some nice pieces. I always thought they were a top 20'ish team. And for the record, I think UCONN, Stanford, SC, ND, and maybe LSU and Arizona have substantial collections of talent. Just my $.02...

 

[Bone Dog]

How is it a substantial collection of talent?

Looks like we hear different nuances in the word substantial. The core of Horston and Key is for real. Jackson is an excellent addition, at least on paper. Dye is a genuine talent and a leading personality.

And I agree that their talent pool doesn’t quite compare to that of the current top 3. These teams are stellar. Tennessee is merely substantial. They probably belong somewhere in the top 25, and will probably settle in somewhere around 12-15 in a few months. Here’s a thought experiment to gauge this: Cardoso or Prechdel could take Key’s place on Tennessee and there’d be no fall off in play. Shaylee Gonzalez could probably start at pg for them and they’d be better for it. Or consider Amihere — she comes off the bench at SC but would be the main talent at Tennessee. By extension, I’m not sure I’d prefer Dye to Aaliyah Moore, or even Mwenentanda, much less Jada Boyd.

I also give Tennessee credit for not having a purely cream puff schedule. We could fault Stanford, for example, for this, other than playing SC. Taking this into account, Tennessee is not as bad as the Portal Patchwork Power Five teams, who could look good for awhile only by playing cream puffs. They played a series of medium level teams and their incoherence as a team was exposed. But they’ll gel soon enough and won’t lose to these teams again. They may look pathetic now, but this won’t last.

November has always been a disruptive month, and this has been exaggerated in the era of portal madness. Sportswriters have been slow to recognize this. As a result, we got a lot of very unrealistic rankings to start the season. I think it was possible to anticipate a lot of the so-called upsets this month, if folks had given more weight to the value of continuity. But credulity was the order of the day at the AP and ESPN.

 

[Tonyc]

Tenn has had problems for a long time. During the late years of Pat there were problems. Pat seemed to be able to keep them out of the media. The administration is not behind the Lady Vols. They are behind the football team and the mens BB team. What Pat built is no longer and the fans expectations are still living within them that Tenn is a top WCBB team. They are no longer and wont be until they can rebuild with a coach who wants to rebuild the program without the support of the board and administration. Basically working with nothing and starting from scratch.

 

[mudcat]

You just said that the SEC is weak this year? Interesting. My view is, SEC is going to be a battle royal if teams are not on their A game. Some teams are going to get tagged. Sleep on Auburn or Vandy if you want too. They might shock a few teams in the SEC.

I think the SEC is pretty far down this year. Aside from SC and possibly LSU they are pretty weak. Even if they don't improve TN should be in the top four just from a talent perspective.

 

[JellyBean]

I think the SEC is pretty far down this year. Aside from SC and possibly LSU they are pretty weak. Even if they don't improve TN should be in the top four just from a talent perspective.

I understand. It is going to be a very interesting season in the SEC.

 

[Plebe]

Walker probably should have passed the ball but Jackson's reaction and her body language are not good.

Wow. Not good is an understatement.

 

[Bone Dog]

I once again made the mistake of watching the vlog of one of the Herhoopstats writers and was struck by this self-serving observation: "When will the upset madness end?" Naturally, Tennessee was the prime example.

It's not madness at all, or even all that unpredictable. But if you're one of those writers who was dazzled by absurd fantasies about all the teams who resorted liberally to the portal it seems that way. So many of them had convinced themselves that these teams would be formidable right away. It's not just that corrupt behemoth, ESPN. It's all of them who voted top 10 rankings to teams that were scarcely as unified as a jellyfish or a sack of cats.

For the good of WCBB, we need just a little bit more sanity from the tribe of sports writers. Will we get it any time soon? Probably not. But the rest of us know that well-coached teams with a culture of camaraderie and leadership will outperform less-well-coached teams composed of more talented (on paper, at least) players. This isn't rocket surgery, people. Stop pretending that WCBB is unpredictable, madness even.

 

[Plebe]

I think the SEC is pretty far down this year. Aside from SC and possibly LSU they are pretty weak. Even if they don't improve TN should be in the top four just from a talent perspective.

I am still predicting that Georgia will win a ton of games and will be a team that absolutely no one in the SEC enjoys playing. Coach Abe has a veteran squad, including some key players who followed her over from UCF, and she gets tremendous buy-in from her team.

But beyond that, other than LSU and SC, virtually every other SEC team that has made an NCAA tournament in recent years looks less impressive than last year.

 

[amb3096]

You just said that the SEC is weak this year? Interesting. My view is, SEC is going to be a battle royal if teams are not on their A game. Some teams are going to get tagged. Sleep on Auburn or Vandy if you want too. They might shock a few teams in the SEC.

IMO, there’s SC and LSU. Tenn too if they are in form. Possibly Arkansas and MSST. Beyond that, I don’t see any teams that are a threat to ranked teams.

 

[amb3096]

It is? How is it a substantial collection of talent? Horston and Jackson were top 5 recruits coming out of HS. I watched Pissot play this summer and was shocked she skyrocketed up to 11 in ESPN's rankings. she's more a 25-30 kid, but that's just my opinion.

Every other recruit on that team was outside the top 40 coming out of HS. Except Hollingshead who was 37. Key was 47. Powell was 73. Most of the recruits for Tennessee who Harper landed were in the 40's or 50's. It's a solid team but not a team filled with a substantial collection of talent.

BTW I'm not picking on you - TONS of people, including the so-called experts - were giddy at Tennessee's prospects this season given "all their talent".

I will admit that Horston and Jackson are individually talented, and Powell is MUCH better than her ranking coming out of HS. But you have a team that actually seems to have negative chemistry, 2 alpha-dog players who don't seem to want to co-exist together, zero offensive teaching over the summer or the 1st 2 months of the season, and this is what you get.

IMHO Tennessee has some nice pieces. I always thought they were a top 20'ish team. And for the record, I think UCONN, Stanford, SC, ND, and maybe LSU and Arizona have substantial collections of talent. Just my $.02...

I think by the time you are a sophomore, HS rankings go out the window. Key was ranked #40-something out of HS, but she was better than some of the top ten players last season. It’s like saying Dolson wasn’t talented because of her low HS ranking despite finishing her career as a collegiate AA. HS rankings aren’t foolproof.

Getting talent to play well together however is a different story

 

[EricSD]

I think by the time you are a sophomore, HS rankings go out the window. Key was ranked #40-something out of HS, but she was better than some of the top ten players last season. It’s like saying Dolson wasn’t talented because of her low HS ranking despite finishing her career as a collegiate AA. HS rankings aren’t foolproof.

Getting talent to play well together however is a different story

So you really believe Tennessee has a substantial collection of talent? Don't disagree with the rankings once you age up in college, but I already acknowledged that in my post. Key and Powell are better than their HS rankings. But substantial collection of talent? Solid talent - sure. Substantial? No way. IMHO.

Perhaps it's splitting hairs, but I have been pretty consistent ever since the rankings came out this season for WCBB - there was NO WAY Tennessee was a top 5 team, 1 seed, or NC contender. Making the sweet 16 is their absolute upside this season.

IMHO not at all. I stand by my comment of the 6 or 7 schools with a substantial collection of talent. There may be a few others - I'm not familiar with every roster. Then you have the programs with a substantial collection of upper classmen - schools like OSU and Indiana. Who have played together for several years. Those kind of programs will beat out teams who have poor chemistry or haven't played together long enough.

Anyway obviously all just my opinion. Plenty of time for the season to play out and see where we are come March.

 

[DefenseBB]

So you really believe Tennessee has a substantial collection of talent? Don't disagree with the rankings once you age up in college, but I already acknowledged that in my post. Key and Powell are better than their HS rankings. But substantial collection of talent? Solid talent - sure. Substantial? No way. IMHO.

Perhaps it's splitting hairs, but I have been pretty consistent ever since the rankings came out this season for WCBB - there was NO WAY Tennessee was a top 5 team, 1 seed, or NC contender. Making the sweet 16 is their absolute upside this season.

IMHO not at all. I stand by my comment of the 6 or 7 schools with a substantial collection of talent. There may be a few others - I'm not familiar with every roster. Then you have the programs with a substantial collection of upper classmen - schools like OSU and Indiana. Who have played together for several years. Those kind of programs will beat out teams who have poor chemistry or haven't played together long enough.

Anyway obviously all just my opinion. Plenty of time for the season to play out and see where we are come March.

I get what you are saying but also think your views are a tad "dated". The depth of talent in HS girls basketball has improved dramatically from 10 years ago. The drop off in talent within the Top 10 to Top 100 is not as drastic as you imply. Look at Creighton and who they have, as it is about using the ingredients to the best of their ability and your coaching which, sadly, Kellie has not harnessed. I also am starting to question this constant "chemistry" concerns that always pop up with Tennessee as good coaches figure out how to make it work, at least to some degree better than a 2-4 record.

Other than SC, Stanford and UConn who all have oodles of talent on those teams (look at UConn's ability to withstand the brutal injuries to Paige/Ice/Dorka and still look really impressive. The next 14 teams are built with myriad of top 100 talent and look really, really good- tOSU, Iowa St, Indiana, ND, NC, Iowa, Louisville, VPI, LSU, NC State, Maryland, Arizona (?), Creighton (why only ranked 16 is beyond me) and Utah.

Just like Geno keeps preaching-talent is deeper and there's better coaching occurring at all levels of the game.