Game Thread: #11 Lady Vols at #18 Fla St; Thurs Nov 9, 6PM

[alexvol]

Agree with those posters who said : o'lay defense will not cut it ;free throw shooting will not cut it ;and defensive rebounding will not cut it .Having said that I was proud of this team tonite .....coming back from a 16 point deficit on the road against a really good team ( at least tonite they shot the lights out from 3 and was really effective driving the ball ).

I disagree that coaching cost the game ....imo the coaching was good to great .

One thing I really liked tonite was the aggressiveness on offense...there are a bunch of players who can hit the bucket and when they had open shots there was little hesitancy to do so. An in shape Key would have made a big difference tonite .....as one poster put it Key guarding the basket would have left the others to play close man and if they get beat by the drive Key could have been there to clean it up.

One last thing ,this is their 2nd game of this season and this team is still trying to learn how to play as a team with all the new players .If they can get Key back up to speed by February ,this team has a very bright future this year

 

[volmanNC]

I've got to walk away for a while
when we lost the game, I yelled and slammed my fist on my desk,,,
probably scared my next door neighbor

waiting for the cops to show up
;o)

You will probably need a new desk after this year!

 

[And1]

I’m disappointed in the loss but dang people, the season just started. Some of you act like the season is over. Take a deep breath or a chill pill. We will be fine. Very few teams in history win every game in a season.

I wonder if Iowa’s fans or Virginia Tech’s fans will think the season is over and will call for the head of their coach since one of them will lose tonight.

 

[Voluble2]

Oh well, when you take a full quarter off you deserve to lose.

Not doing anything to extend the lead when we were up five was the killer. I told my daughter whoever broke that impasse would win.

Kellie didn't learn anything from overscheduling last year. Too many new faces learning to play with each other to go on the road at a place like FSU this early in the season. You pretty much doom yourself to a poor seed before league play even begins if you drop a few while you are integrating everyone.

All of that aside, as long as the hallmark of our defense continues to be leaving wide open threes we will struggle. We did that all last year too. Teams could pretty much get one whenever they wanted one.

Our post game on offense is almost nonexistent and will be a liability against teams which are decent there. Jackson makes up for a lot of that scoring wise, but with defense and rebounding....

People wondered who would make up for the rebounds Horston got and it looks like the answer to that one is that no one will and we have to collapse low, which exacerbates our perimeter problems.

The coach we need to return us to the top has to win games like this one. Kellie has been here long enough we shouldn't be getting upset all the time, and we shouldn't be coming out with low intensity. The knock on her is that she seems to have a ceiling on the results she can produce. She has to prove that wrong this season, otherwise I think we will float around 15-30 in the rankings every year. That shouldn't be acceptable at UT. She doesn't really beat anyone she shouldn't very often and she loses to bunches of teams she should beat. This would have been an acceptable performance earlier in her tenure, but we should be past performances like we saw in the first quarter by now. Tonight she took a team with some of the top players from the conferences they transferred from and a top 5 WNBA pick and lost to a team with one name player. That takes some doing, but she managed to pull it off.

She has plenty to work with, and if she can't get it done with this group she just won't ever get it done. I hope the team jells and makes a run. But damn if they aren't going to have to do it the hard way.

 

[Majors]

Sadly defense doesn’t have stats. Other than “steals”

92 points is a pretty telling stat

 

[DarkPhoenix]

Agree with those posters who said : o'lay defense will not cut it ;free throw shooting will not cut it ;and defensive rebounding will not cut it .Having said that I was proud of this team tonite .....coming back from a 16 point deficit on the road against a really good team ( at least tonite they shot the lights out from 3 and was really effective driving the ball ).

I disagree that coaching cost the game ....imo the coaching was good to great .

One thing I really liked tonite was the aggressiveness on offense...there are a bunch of players who can hit the bucket and when they had open shots there was little hesitancy to do so. An in shape Key would have made a big difference tonite .....as one poster put it Key guarding the basket would have left the others to play close man and if they get beat by the drive Key could have been there to clean it up.

One last thing ,this is their 2nd game of this season and this team is still trying to learn how to play as a team with all the new players .If they can get Key back up to speed by February ,this team has a very bright future this year

Key is done, don’t count on her at all this year, she won’t help. I just hope we can get an elite player from the portal since Rickea will be gone.

 

[alexvol]

Key is done, don’t count on her at all this year, she won’t help. I just hope we can get an elite player from the portal since Rickea will be gone.

That is a huge assumption ......I will reserve opinion on that until February .Athletes with blood clots have come back before just look at OG Smith for the Vols and Kansas City Chiefs.

 

[volnationnj]

Everyone has great stats in a 92 point game lmaooooo

This.

 

[LasVegasBill23]

I wonder if Iowa’s fans or Virginia Tech’s fans will think the season is over and will call for the head of their coach since one of them will lose tonight.

Unfortunately Florida State not the caliber of either Va Tech or Iowa

 

[DarkPhoenix]

That is a huge assumption ......I will reserve opinion on that until February .Athletes with blood clots have come back before just look at OG Smith for the Vols and Kansas City Chiefs.

U can have hope, but don’t count on it.

 

[glv98]

And playing Sun and Tues probably wasn't ideal to play a road game on Thursday.

It was not a good idea. I said it then. Time should have been used for game prep for FSU, esp defense.

Still pissed at SENIOR Tess in her feels bc she feels threatened for pt

Oh FFS. You don't know that at all, and Tess certainly doesn't seem that kind of kid. I get you have a very big agenda for Strickland, but you're embarrassing yourself.

I agree. There has just been this weird lack of energy and no one seems to care. Bring a real coach that will light a fire in the team and the fanbase.

Oh FFS x10. Yeah, Rickea didn't care one bit. Had 31/17 while filing her nails for 37 minutes. Everyone played hard, that had zero to do with anything.

This was pretty much the exact same sentiment after the Ohio St game last year.

I'm uncharacteristically sunshine pumping tonight, but this feels very different. The OSU loss last year was a total meltdown in a sea of dumb turnovers. This was an epic comeback and a last second loss in a shootout. Of course we played D like sh*t, but this was not the OSU loss.

Kellie didn't learn anything from overscheduling last year. Too many new faces learning to play with each other to go on the road at a place like FSU this early in the season. You pretty much doom yourself to a poor seed before league play even begins if you drop a few while you are integrating everyone.

See above, I disagree. I think this was a very good early season test, was a great game, and stuff can be carried forward from it. Being in this kind of dog fight should be beneficial. Now we have two easy games at home and 10 days to sleep in their own beds and have productive practice on D before heading to the Thanksgiving tourney to play Indiana.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

It was not a good idea. I said it then. Time should have been used for game prep for FSU, esp defense.

Oh FFS. You don't know that at all, and Tess certainly doesn't seem that kind of kid. I get you have a very big agenda for Strickland, but you're embarrassing yourself.


Oh FFS x10. Yeah, Rickea didn't care one bit. Had 31/17 while filing her nails for 37 minutes. Everyone played hard, that had zero to do with anything.

I'm uncharacteristically sunshine pumping tonight, but this feels very different. The OSU loss last year was a total meltdown in a sea of dumb turnovers. This was an epic comeback and a last second loss in a shootout. Of course we played D like sh*t, but this was not the OSU loss.

See above, I disagree. I think this was a very good early season test, was a great game, and stuff can be carried forward from it. Being in this kind of dog fight should be beneficial. Now we have two easy games at home and a long time to sleep in their own beds and have productive practice on D before headed to the Thanksgiving tourney to play Indiana.

No game is easy for us, but I won’t overreact to players having good games against inferior competition, this was the test and we failed. It’s fine because now I know what to expect. Focus on the Indiana and Notre Dame games because that’s all that matters, but I won’t get emotional anymore but tonight I’m going through it.

 

[LV renaissance]

First of all, our defense, which coming into this game I thought was the worst I had ever seen by a LV team against extremely weak opponents to begin the season, looked like they didn't change anything that first quarter. Last year I bemoaned the double-digit deficits we were in at the end of the first quarter against many of the rated teams we were playing. For some reason, we just either come out tight and/or totally out of kilter defensively. Even when we won against LSU, we were down by about 17 at the half. This has change for a successful season. There is no logical reason why it shouldn't unless the team is taking Xanax before the start of the game. If they continue to start big games this way, perhaps they should hand one out to the fans!

That said, we did find some defense the rest of the game. Not perfect by any means, but still a real defense with a pulse. I thought that Jasmine was the key reason for this turnaround. If she can play defense like this against a really fast Florida State team, we need her to be our point guard starter despite some continued issues with turnovers and shooting. We don't need her to be a major shooter, we need guard defense. She put so much passion in the latter part of the game that for the first time as a LV she was looking the part of someone who was all conference for the BIG 10. It seems that both Powell and Puckett may be completely out of the funk they were in last year.

I don't have anything unique to add about Rickea. She is clearly playing at a level that warrants SEC POY and 1st string All American if she continues at this level. 31 points and 17 rebounds on the road against a top 20 opponent: SICK!

We need more from the Center position. Jillian is really good when she is in the zone, but she slips out of the zone too often. Striplin can be good on offense but seems like a liability on defense. Key may yet recover enough during the season to give us meaningful backup minutes here.

There is a reason why I waited a bit to post this. I was really upset to lose yet again but having so many opportunities to win. It always feels like an emotional punch to the gut when you lead the entire 4th quarter and had so many opportunities to turn a 5 point lead to a 7 or 8 point lead yet lost the lead right at the end of the game. I have recovered now and still feel more optimistic than pessimistic about being a good team this year. I hope they prove me right.

 

[glv98]

No game is easy for us, but I won’t overreact to players having good games against inferior competition, this was the test and we failed. It’s fine because now I know what to expect. Focus on the Indiana and Notre Dame games because that’s all that matters, but I won’t get emotional anymore but tonight I’m going through it.

Man ya'll are really underestimating Fla St. They are not an "inferior" team! Are you honestly dissing Rickea's stats bc FSU was not tough enough competition?!? You're nuts.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

Man ya'll are really underestimating Fla St. They are not an "inferior" team! Are you honestly dissing Rickea's stats bc FSU was not tough enough competition?!? You're nuts.

No Rickea is elite and she did what she had to do, I’ve explained what went wrong with this game in previous posts. We just aren’t that good, I’m going to honest I don’t think we should be ranked, but who knows I could just be emotional right now, but I haven’t felt like this in a while.

 

[VolFuture]

It was not a good idea. I said it then. Time should have been used for game prep for FSU, esp defense.

Oh FFS. You don't know that at all, and Tess certainly doesn't seem that kind of kid. I get you have a very big agenda for Strickland, but you're embarrassing yourself.


Oh FFS x10. Yeah, Rickea didn't care one bit. Had 31/17 while filing her nails for 37 minutes. Everyone played hard, that had zero to do with anything.

I'm uncharacteristically sunshine pumping tonight, but this feels very different. The OSU loss last year was a total meltdown in a sea of dumb turnovers. This was an epic comeback and a last second loss in a shootout. Of course we played D like sh*t, but this was not the OSU loss.

See above, I disagree. I think this was a very good early season test, was a great game, and stuff can be carried forward from it. Being in this kind of dog fight should be beneficial. Now we have two easy games at home and 10 days to sleep in their own beds and have productive practice on D before heading to the Thanksgiving tourney to play Indiana.

Literally was asking for kayia to come in all game actually…

 

[LVsinceJV]

I’d take coach waltz or Lawson any day.I’m sorry I need someone who knows and has played at the highest levels of the game as a player and coach .

Lawson hasn't proved herself yet at this point.

 

[glv98]

No Rickea is elite and she did what she had to do, I’ve explained what went wrong with this game in previous posts. We just aren’t that good, I’m going to honest I don’t think we should be ranked, but who knows I could just be emotional right now, but I haven’t felt like this in a while.

Then who/wtf are talking about having good games against inferior competition?

Oh never mind.

 

[glv98]

Literally was asking for kayia to come in all game actually…

She did come in for a little bit. Her D was no better.

I'll say again - this many D1 players cannot be this bad on defense. Something is wrong with the system.

 

[knoxvol52]

Good notes...offense was great
Bad notes....defense is horrifying...
Darby is an asset on offense and a liability on defense.....take your choice offense or defense...
Can't expect RJ to put up 29 and 16 every game...teams will figure out how to stop it....
#15 only player on team that plays defense...

 

[VolFuture]

She did come in for a little bit. Her D was no better.

I'll say again - this many D1 players cannot be this bad on defense. Something is wrong with the system.

We are all super star scorers who only care about points.. we can’t possibly play hard/ foul on d bc we’re too important on offense like Caitlyn Clark

 

[volforlife10]

No Rickea is elite and she did what she had to do, I’ve explained what went wrong with this game in previous posts. We just aren’t that good, I’m going to honest I don’t think we should be ranked, but who knows I could just be emotional right now, but I haven’t felt like this in a while.

don’t deserve to be ranked… pls for the love of God, put your phone down. you’re crazy if you seriously think this team does not deserve to be ranked.

 

[Lucy]

Ultimately, we will have to find a way to play better defense if we want to be a contender. As simple as that.

I thought our defense started off weak but looked a lot better in the second half. Powell was really hounding the ball and we seemed to quit over committing to the driver and were able to close out on the three point shooter. One of the last two 3 pointers they hit we were totally in the shooters face and she sill hit it.
Neutral court I think we beat a good FSU team 4 out of 5 times.

 

[glv98]

We are all super star scorers who only care about points.. we can’t possibly play hard/ foul on d bc we’re too important on offense like Caitlyn Clark

Oh great, are you going to be this butthurt over pt for your fave all the time? If you watched that battle tonight and thought a single one of our warriors were selfish prima donnas, I suggest you find a new hobby. This is not for you.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

Then who/wtf are talking about having good games against inferior competition?

Oh never mind.

I’m talking about the Memphis and Troy game, did u read the post I was responding to?