TN ranking streak likely to end + And it does . . . (merged thread)

[Joe6cats]

Lady Vols players post game Press Conference:

Diamond is obviously upset with the coaching staff.

I truly feel sorry for those young women but... I cannot imagine two Husky players giving an interview like that, no matter how devastating the loss.

 

[Tonyc]

Is Holly going through the motions? No significant recruits coming in. Players with bad attitudes and you can hear it in the many of the post game interviews. Consistent struggling in games with a roster of top recruits and losses to anyteam anywhere and anyplace. This is not an NCAA Tourney team. Tenn will lose in the first or second game of the SEC tourney .The players haven't been developed. The players don't play as a team. The players get worse instead of better. Is there one positive thing that you can say about this team? Tenn is a mess.

 

[ochoopsfan]

Apparently there is now a Petition on Line to have Holly FIRED

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/holly-warlick-must-go-we-demand-a-change

 

[Rocket009]

I love the petition statement "...the University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball program has went from national powerhouse to a complete joke."

Tennessee at it's best.

 

[CocoHusky]

Holly's post game Press Conference:

Did paisley come back in style and someone forgot to tell me or did it go out and someone forgot to tell Holly?

 

[Farney]

Anybody want to start a petition to give her an extension and a raise?

 

[Kaizen]

Charlie Creme ‏@CharlieCreme 4h4 hours ago
Charlie Creme Retweeted Justin Johnson

I don't see any way TN stays in the top-25 rankings tomorrow.

Charlie Creme added,

Justin Johnson @jjohnson801
@CharlieCreme might see the end of that AP ranking streak tomorrow too.

 

[UcMiami]

I truly feel sorry for those young women but... I cannot imagine two Husky players giving an interview like that, no matter how devastating the loss.

When was the last time Uconn had such a bad team! Uconn has not lost 8 games in the regular season since the 1992-3 season, and hasn't lost 10 regular season games since 1987-8!!!

 

[pinotbear]

I love the petition statement "...the University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball program has went from national powerhouse to a complete joke."

Tennessee at it's best.

yeah, anybody what graduated from a Tennessee high school knows that the c'rect construction of that sentence is "Lady Vols basketball program done gone from national powerhouse to a complete joke."

 

[Bernie]

That petition wasnt started by a Lady Vol fan it was by a Vol football fan. There's seems to be an influx of football fans recently on volnation who are there to either bash the players personally or bash Holly and have yet to even watch a game of the Lady Vols and they couldn't even name you the whole roster. The Lady Vol fans might want Holly gone, but they're not stupid enough to start a petition seeing how that went for the men's basketball team.

 

[rbny1]

I actually feel bad for Holly after watching her postgame interview. She looks and sounds so incredibly depressed. I hate the Vols, but no one should go through what she's going through. I assume she is a decent person who happens to be a terrible coach. She is paying a terrible emotional price for her lack of coaching skill. Yikes! I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

 

[sarals24]

Why would the football fans care?

 

[sarals24]

I actually feel bad for Holly after watching her postgame interview. She looks and sounds so incredibly depressed. I hate the Vols, but no one should go through what she's going through. I assume she is a decent person who happens to be a terrible coach. She is paying a terrible emotional price for her lack of coaching skill. Yikes! I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I don't. She's collecting a very nice paycheck for such a crappy team. I could coach that team to the same record for half a million dollars. Hell, throw in a nice bonus and extension and I could sign zero recruits too!

 

[Papa33]

I love the petition statement "...the University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball program has went from national powerhouse to a complete joke."

Tennessee at it's best.

Probably just a careless omission: the petitioner obviously meant to write, "'the University of Tennessee . . . has [done] went from national powerhouse . . . .'"

 

[Woof 101]

Holly's post game Press Conference:

Not knocking the post, actually a good post. I will take the Husky high road though and say as much as I dislike Tenn, that was excruciating to watch. That is a broken woman, sad to say. She has had a long and storied career as a player and a coach but obviously way in over her head at this point.
Having said that I am obviously getting old and soft. A few years back I would have posted the video of DT punching the Tenn stanchion.

 

[Replicant]

They are playing like a WNIT team. 7-7 in conference, 11 losses overall.

Two games left in the regular season which they should win against Bama and UGA, but after the LSU flop all bets are off. They will not win the SEC tourney, so they'll have at least 12 and perhaps 13 losses. When's the last time a 12/13 loss team made the NCAA's?

 

[pacific 44]

Can we start a petition for Ms.Warlick to retain her position for at least another 5 years?

 

[UcMiami]

I actually feel bad for Holly after watching her postgame interview. She looks and sounds so incredibly depressed. I hate the Vols, but no one should go through what she's going through. I assume she is a decent person who happens to be a terrible coach. She is paying a terrible emotional price for her lack of coaching skill. Yikes! I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I don't. She's collecting a very nice paycheck for such a crappy team. I could coach that team to the same record for half a million dollars. Hell, throw in a nice bonus and extension and I could sign zero recruits too!

Yes - she has a very easy way to get out from under - at the end of the year thank everyone graciously and retire. With decent planning she should have saved enough for a very comfortable retirement and she could probably pick up any number of gigs with less stress and better success.
I agree that she seems like a pretty decent human being who is totally out of her depth.

 

[rvwsleep]

While I agree that Holly is not a very good coach, she was able to lead last year's LV's to the elite 8 despite multiple injuries (including their best player). Same coach, different results.
Only some of the players have changed.
Personally, I think that this Tennessee team is the largest collection of over rated, low bb iq, terrible shooting players ever assembled on one campus. They can't shoot, they can't pass and they play with little to no enthusiasm. Other than that, they're not bad.

 

[FairView]

I love the petition statement "...the University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball program has went from national powerhouse to a complete joke."

Tennessee at it's best.

Tennessee at it's best is spelling at its worst.

 

[SCGamecock]

I personally don't think they should be a tourney team. They are in 9th place in the SEC, 7-7 in conference and 16-11 overall. Their best wins on the season are:

Oregon State: 23-3, 1st place in PAC-12
Syracuse: 21-6, 11-3 in ACC
Chattanooga: 20-7 overall. Lost by 2 to Tennessee, 48 to UCONN, 43 to Stanford and 28 to South Florida.
Auburn: 18-8 overall, 8-5 in SEC play
Missouri: 20-6 overall, 7-6 in SEC play

Note how ALL of these wins happened early in the season. The most recent "good" win was against Auburn on January 10th. If I'm on the committee, I'd place significantly lower emphasis on the wins over Syracuse and Oregon State because they happened so early in the year, and greater emphasis on their recent losses.

They have steadily declined as the season continues and are seriously tanking as the end of the year approaches. After winning their first 3 games separated by 5 or less, they have now lost 6 in a row decided by 5 points or less. Multiple times they have blown late 4th quarter leads. Today's was utterly ridiculous. 4 missed free throws in the last minute, leaving your worst free throw shooter in the game late, fouling the opposing team 80 feet from the basket with 3 seconds left, etc. Many UT fans and myself hope they don't get in at this point in an effort to get rid of Warlick.

Mind you, this this is a team that has:
2013 #1 overall recruit, McDonald's AA game MVP
2013 #3 overall recruit, 2014 NFOY at other program
2012 #5 overall recruit, 2013 NFOY by some media outlets
2014 #6 overall recruit, McDonald's AA
2015 #12 overall recruit, McDonald's AA game MVP
2012 #21 recruit, 2014 All SEC Freshman team
2014 #28 recruit, McDonald's AA
2013 #42 recruit, McDonald's AA

Compare this to #3 Notre Dame when you look at active players on their roster:
2014 #2 overall recruit, 2014 ACC FOY
2015 #10 overall recruit, McDonald's AA
2013 #18 overall recruit, McDonald's AA
2014 #21 overall recruit, McDonald's AA
2015 #26 overall recruit, McDonald's AA game MVP
2012 #33 overall recruit, McDonald's AA
2013 #39 overall recruit

Or #2 South Carolina
2014 #1 overall recruit, 2014 SEC FOY
2014 #7 overall recruit, McDonald's AA
2013 #28 overall recruit, McDonald's AA
2014 #35 overall recruit, McDonald's AA
2012 #40 overall recruit
2012 #46 overall recruit

Looking at this blindly, everyone would pick Tennessee's lineup. Holly has under-performed in her ability to develop talent, under-performed in her ability to build a cohesive team, under-performed in her ability to get players to buy into her system, and under-performed in her in game coaching abilit. Plus, she has no one on deck for 2016 and 2017. Dave Hart needs to get rid of her ASAP if the program has any chance of being a Final Four team in the next 5 years.

Wow.. I knew Tennessee was loaded with talent but I didn't it was that much. Meanwhile, seems like Dawn is doing okay with considerably less talent. Aside from Coates in the 2013 class, our stars are sophomores. Everybody else was ranked on the low end. Tiffany Mitchell was a project but she will end up being a major selling point for Dawn. If Dawn can get back to back top 15ish or so classes in 2017 and 2018 then I think we'll be in business for the post-Wilson foreseeable future.

 

[sarals24]

I think Diamond is toxic. Not saying she's not a good player, but drama seems to follow her around.

 

[ocoandasoc]

Two games left in the regular season which they should win against Bama and UGA, but after the LSU flop all bets are off. They will not win the SEC tourney, so they'll have at least 12 and perhaps 13 losses. When's the last time a 12/13 loss team made the NCAA's?

Last year.

 

[ocoandasoc]

Creme has TN as a #7 seed now (will be released tomorrow) and thinks they'd have to do something good in the SEC Tourney to move up from there. He does project nine teams in from the SEC. My Mizzou team and Georgia probably both punched their tickets with good wins today. TN plays Alabama and Georgia, two teams they should beat, but then they should have beat LSU, LOL! If they should somehow fail to win another game they'd be on the bubble... but one more win and they'll be in. Charlie Creme told me that he believes that Auburn may be in more jeopardy of missing the Tourney if the SEC only gets eight teams in. They have two tough games left and could finish at 8 and 8 in the conference and a lower RPI. I think it is accurate to say that Tenn will receive extra consideration if it's a close call because of their history (they've never missed the Tourney).

There seems to be more pity for Holly than anger. Being a good assistant for a lot of years doesn't automatically mean you're head coach material. She certainly deserved a shot -- but Tenn did take a chance when they hired someone with zero head coaching experience who had only worked at a single program under the same head coach for all those years. And maybe the biggest loser is Holly. The game seems to move too quick for Holly... her wheels are spinning but the game is going by. She's second guessing herself -- and letting others second guess her. It's almost like she reads the media and fans comments and changes things up based on what she's read. (Can you imagine Geno or another top WCBB coach doing that?) After relatively credible performances the last two years she just never found the handle on this year's team. She has been unable to settle on a starting lineup or any kind of rotation even after all her players were healthy and available. She still plays the antiquated Pat Summitt defend-and-rebound game and has been unable to come up with an offense that can consistently score against a decent zone defense. She pulls players when they make mistakes and they lose confidence -- in both themselves and their coach. She tends to keep players on the floor that never do anything wrong -- but who don't do nearly enough right offensively. She seems unable to adjust to the talents and flaws, strengths and weaknesses, of the players she has as she keeps putting them in positions and expecting them to do things that they are not especially adept at. (Just look at how she's used Deshields, Dunbar, and Russell!)

I will say that I knew - and many suspected -- that the expectations of the Tenn fans going into this year were totally unrealistic. There's no way to reasonably expect a freshman point guard and two players who hadn't played in a year to take you to the Final Four. But this team has under-performed even more than anyone expected.

TN boosters and fans are calling for Holly's head. Even Maria C. has stopped defending her and the players. But the TN athletic department has bigger problems right now so it's doubtful that anything is going to happen unless Holly resigns. (Could you walk away from $600K a year!) Still, there are zero recruits coming in for next year (unless they get some juco's or players outside the Top 100), none signed yet in the 2017 class, and rumors that some players may transfer or play pro in Europe next year. Fans are questioning the reasons Holly can't recruit. even bringing up her sexual orientation. There's also a disappointment that Holly is not developing the current players who look no better now -- individually or as a team -- than they did at the start of the year. Throw in tweets of discontent from former players, WCBB analysts, and some of the player's parents, and you've got one ugly situation.

 

[j66kicker]

On another note, as much as I dislike Tennessee, I always hate seeing players put through difficult pressers after losing. I feel for them.

Sorry - not feelin' it....?