Game Thread: (11) Lady Vols 67 - (12) Indiana 79

[VA_VOLFAN]

Taking the locker room away will not help the coaching malpractice that is going on. I had so much hope for KJH but she certainly does not appear to be the fixer this program needs. May we should go after the Indiana coach.

She also had us all on the edge of our seats last year and figured out how to get to a sweet 16 with her best player missing

Not saying we don't have to be better! Because we do (by a lot) but i actually feel like we will be better at the end of the season for what sucks right now... did i mention this sucks

 

[lvocd]

Ya’ll will see. I hated to see her go to Tn. We watched her tear Mississippi State apart. I was hoping she had matured and wouldn’t be the Diva she had to be at state. Bless ya’lls heart!!

I don't think it helps UT in any way for someone to come here and tag a player as "poison." TWICE, even. You are way out of line with that IMO.

 

[Amb3096]

My take on this game is that this time is a completely different beast from last season defensively. They are giving up way too many points per game given their size and length.

Player evals -

Tamari Key has been a non-factor defensively. She's taken a huge step backwards. Where are the blocks?!?

Jackson is a downgrade from Burrell on the defensive end. She played out of control tonight and had a ton of turnovers.

Powell needs to stop calling her own number and pass the ball. There were a number of times where Tennessee had numbers in transition and she drove right into the heart of the defense and got stuffed.

Walker...God bless her, but she needs to go to the bench. She's just not good enough to be playing big minutes for a top 10 team.

Tess is doing what she needs to, and had several beautiful deep makes. They could mask a lot of her deficiencies if the other starters played efficiently. She got beat on defense several times, but that's where Tamari or one of the bigs needed to be able to bail her out.

Franklin and Hollinshead look ok. They're backup players and make some good plays and some bad plays. But they are role players at best.

Miles doesn't bring much to the game. She's fast, but has no offensive game and is not a particularly high IQ player.

Puckett and Suarez looked slow and ineffective when they are on the court, and aren't doing anything on offense or defense so far to warrant extended minutes.

Wynn is a project who needs another 1-2 years of development. She should be last off the bench.

Striplin may need to think about her future.

Coaching eval-

Kellie seems to behave like everything will fix itself with little input from her. She just looks...like a bystander in the 2 losses so far. She's not imparting a sense of urgency and no leadership.

 

[ttharp]

It’s early so I’m holding out hope. But if it continues the way it looks like it might she may be in trouble. I love Kellie and really thought we were trending the right direction. She hasn’t put the pieces together with this group yet.

If she does, we will have a heck of a team. If she doesn’t, we will look like this off and on all season. Sometimes great, sometimes absent. Especially on defense.

I really want to hold out hope. These performances, however, aren’t an anomaly for Kellie’s teams. The way they’re losing games this season is the same way her previous teams lost games.

At this point, this team is on track to lose every OOC game on the schedule against ranked teams. (VT, Stanford, UConn, a potential matchup with Texas). And that has major NCAA tournament implications. This team, who was projected to be a 1 seed, isn’t even looking like it’ll host right now.

Holly was given a lot of time to run the program into the ground, and if Kellie continues as HC beyond this season (especially with her HS recruiting track record and who is graduating after this year), this storied program may never recover.

 

[lfvol]

I was going to say the same thing. But didn't want to sound mean or nasty. I love all the kids on the team. But who coming out of HS was a top 10 recruit?

Jackson and Horston. That's it. Jas Powell was ranked 74. Tamari Key #47. Salary, Darby, Puckett, Striplin, Wynn, Miles, etc. none of them were higher than 47 coming out of HS. Key is probably the only player who is significantly better than her HS ranking. Talent-wise, we are probably one of the top 20 teams in the nation. To me that's not "incredibly talented".

People want to blame the coaching. but we basically have 2 kids who were top 10, 2 who were ranked lower and much better than their ranking (Key and Powell), and what else? With the talent level, I don't think Harper is doing badly at all...

Ok, but they are far more athletic and somewhat more talented than last year but haven’t shown it yet.

 

[ocoandasoc]

I was going to say the same thing. But didn't want to sound mean or nasty. I love all the kids on the team. But who coming out of HS was a top 10 recruit?

Jackson and Horston. That's it. Jas Powell was ranked 74. Tamari Key #47. Salary, Darby, Puckett, Striplin, Wynn, Miles, etc. none of them were higher than 47 coming out of HS. Key is probably the only player who is significantly better than her HS ranking. Talent-wise, we are probably one of the top 20 teams in the nation. To me that's not "incredibly talented".

People want to blame the coaching. but we basically have 2 kids who were top 10, 2 who were ranked lower and much better than their ranking (Key and Powell), and what else? With the talent level, I don't think Harper is doing badly at all...

But how does that talent/class rankings compare with those of Indiana or Ohio State? Or Massachusetts, for that matter?

 

[Amb3096]

Ok, but they are far more athletic and somewhat more talented than last year but haven’t shown it yet.

I think the athleticism is overstated. Horston, Jackson and Hollingshead are freaks. The rest of them are average to below average. Some of them just look downright slow and out of place in a fast paced game.

 

[kxtop]

What do board members think is the problem of this team?

 

[FrozenLVFan]

Key needs a kick in the ass. Either play like she wants to be out there, or sit.
We need to keep Walker at PG because she runs the team and passes the ball, and put Powell at the 2.
Wynn continues to fail to impress, and does not belong in the P5.
We need to get Jackson in a position to excel. Our current offense isn't doing it.
Ditto for Puckett.
Jon Harper either needs to improve the rebounding of our bigs or he needs to go. Walker and Powell had 15 of our 33 RB's.
At least our TO's weren't horrendous this game.
FT shooting was as good as my math.

 

[Amb3096]

What do board members think is the problem of this team?

Ineffective coaching, lack of on court chemistry, some individual lackadaisical play.

Even without Horston, they should have been able to beat Indiana on their home court.

 

[Amb3096]

Key needs a kick in the ass. Either play like she wants to be out there, or sit.
We need to keep Walker at PG because she runs the team and passes the ball, and put Powell at the 2.
Wynn continues to fail to impress, and does not belong in the P5.
We need to get Jackson in a position to excel. Our current offense isn't doing it.
Ditto for Puckett.
Jon Harper either needs to improve the rebounding or he needs to go.
At least our TO's weren't horrendous this game.
When all is said and done, we lost by the same number of points as we missed FT's.

Not sold on Walker, not this year and not last year as the starting PG. Powell was supposed to fix the deficiency at PG with Walker/Horston doing a sub-part job at that last season. Powell is fine at PG, but she needs to get her teammates involved more and stop calling her own number as Option #1.

 

[Voluble2]

They need to start Key and make it work. Her presence on the court impacts the other team with her defensive potential (even if she's not doing anything). At least teams will largely think twice about going inside if they know that she's hovering around.

All teams have to do is run an offense that pulls her out to the 3 pt line and it is like she isn't even there. Gotta keep her in the paint.

 

[Amb3096]

All teams have to do is run an offense that pulls her out to the 3 pt line and it is like she isn't even there. Gotta keep her in the paint.

Yeah, I don't understand why. And it wasn't even always Holmes that was coming out where Tamari needed to come guard her on the perimeter. I saw her on Berger a few times. Once she's out of the paint, then you don't even have to be a great athlete to score against whoever is left to guard inside.

 

[MoCo_Vol]

Jordan walker 28 minutes and 1 point. Smh

1-6 from FT, wth is up with her?

 

[RAVOL]

View attachment 514477

Question. How does Madi compare athletically to Indiana players. Love the skill they played with they understand how to play the game.

 

[lvocd]

I don't have any answers for anything, but I do have a question that's been on my mind for a while now. I'm wondering if all the NIL activity is too big a distraction. I can see on social media that players are participating in quite a few events, and there seems to be a great deal of focus on that ever-expanding area of college athletics.

Are the players spreading themselves too thin? It was always difficult enough to balance the demands of classwork and high-level team sports, but now they have added various "meet the players" events for fans and radio spots and vlogs and on and on. Are players having less time to get into the gym on their own now? I really don't know. It could actually be such a small amount of time they're spending on NIL matters that it's irrelevant. But I have to wonder ...

 

[Rooster1]

What do board members think is the problem of this team?

Certainly the team chemistry is not there at this point. Team offense is way unorganized, but….

Probably more glaring is that the team has not come into the season with any identity to build upon. Not offensively or more surprisingly, defensively. I would have bet a large sum that this team, bringing back 4 starters and adding quality players would have kept that defensive identity in tact….including continuing to be a national leader in rebounds. IU outrebounded UT tonight. And so far, that defense from last season hasn’t surfaced yet. Hard to understand.

 

[Amb3096]

I don't have any answers for anything, but I do have a question that's been on my mind for a while now. I'm wondering if all the NIL activity is too big a distraction. I can see on social media that players are participating in quite a few events, and there seems to be a great deal of focus on that ever-expanding area of college athletics.

Are the players spreading themselves too thin? It was always difficult enough to balance the demands of classwork and high-level team sports, but now they have added various "meet the players" events for fans and radio spots and vlogs and on and on. Are players having less time to get into the gym on their own now? I really don't know. It could actually be such a small amount of time they're spending on NIL matters that it's irrelevant. But I have to wonder ...

If that was the case, then wouldn't it be affecting the big time earners and social media stars: Azzi Fudd, Zia Cooke, Cavinder Twins, Hailey Van Lith, etc...? They all seem to be dealing with focusing on the games just fine.

 

[GameTime]

Wynn is offensively challenged...She has not even hit the rim yet, and yet she was one of the first off the bench.....Yes, I know she is quick for defense, but she can't shoot.

Walker has become an offensive liability as well....Going into the trees for a lay up rarely works...She badly missed the rim from the 3 point line....Not good.

Darby gave it a go and did a decent job.....Good for her.

Key seemed to lose interest at some point, but she gave it the ol' college try...

RJ had her positive moments, but some negative ones too... What else is new.

We have no offensive personality....And not much of a defensive personality...

We have two excellent outside shooters, Puckett and Justine, but they just mostly watch the game from the bench...Their defense can't be worse than what I saw tonight.

UI showed our coaches how to use players that can shoot from the outside, maybe they'll see our outside shooters need to be in the damn game and shoot the damn ball....

My apologies to this board, I really over hyped this team...

 

[Jeff Clark]

What do board members think is the problem of this team?

Coaching and along with that team chemistry

 

[Amb3096]

Certainly the team chemistry is not there at this point. Team offense is way unorganized, but….

Probably more glaring is that the team has not come into the season with any identity to build upon. Not offensively or more surprisingly, defensively. I would have bet a large sum that this team, bringing back 4 starters and adding quality players would have kept that defensive identity in tact….including continuing to be a national leader in rebounds. IU outrebounded UT tonight. And so far, that defense from last season hasn’t surfaced yet. Hard to understand.

This is the part that bothers me. Start Walker, Horston, Darby, Puckett and Key. They are the experienced players from last year. Then break in Powell and Jackson eventually into the starting lineup once they develop chemistry and whatever "system" Tennessee is running. Why throw continuity out the window and try to mesh in two ball-dominant players into the starting lineup at the same time?

 

[lvocd]

If that was the case, then wouldn't it be affecting the big time earners and social media stars: Azzi Fudd, Zia Cooke, Cavinder Twins, Hailey Van Lith, etc...? They all seem to be dealing with focusing on the games just fine.

Depends on how many events they're involved in. I only see what our players are doing, and they are staying pretty busy with events. Not sure what other players on other teams are doing.

 

[Amb3096]

We have two excellent outside shooters, Puckett and Justine, but they just mostly watch the game from the bench...Their defense can't be worse than what I saw tonight.

Puckett is not a great 3-pt shooter...under 30% last season. So far in limited action, she hasn't presented a strong argument for why she should play more. She just looks really slow out there. Same with Suarez (who statistically is a better 3-pt shooter).

No idea why Pissott didn't get minutes. I mean, she put Wynn in the game and frankly, she can't play basketball at this level.

 

[Amb3096]

Depends on how many events they're involved in. I only see what our players are doing, and they are staying pretty busy with events. Not sure what other players on other teams are doing.

I would envision it would be about the same. Azzi, Zia and Cavinders are also way more active on social media than any of the other players, and I'm sure they have added pressure to maintain their SM content. Can't imagine that the demands on Tennessee are significantly (if at all) higher than bigger name players (either by playing reputation or popularity).

 

[Basketballjunkie76]

But it likely indicates why she may not be hired next.

Assuming she would actually want it….she seems pretty happy at Duke