Game Thread: 2023 Women's NCAA Tournament...Round of 16: Lady Vols v Va. Tech...Sat @ 6:30 ESPN2

[Texas]

Tennessee needs speed. Shoulda had Miles and Wynn in. Shoulda had them in more the whole season. Too slow and and

 

[Prophet1]

Obviously, using the press to beat teams would never have occurred to McGuff before the Va Tech game tonight. If only he had used that against CONN.

Right on funny thang , glad you got it.

 

[sisaq]

Love Tess, but she has to figure out how to show up in big games

Tess will be great if somebody is teaching her moving without the ball. Creating her shoots. I remembered watching Zolman. Opponent get tired Chasing ger around like Cury.when she doesn't play well, we're done.

 

[UT Challenger]

The most significant stat differential is that they hit 8 of 26 threes and we hit 3 of 17. There's your ball game. We just didn't shoot threes well.

Hopefully Justine can fill that spot next year

 

[Lucy]

Yeah, the AD needs to put a stop to that rotation crap. Kellie has a set number of minutes and times when certain players go in and out no matter how the game is going. This is especially true in the first half of games.

We had options tonight. Hollingshead matched up well and could have had more minutes. Or we could have gone with the pressing lineup and played more small ball. Instead we wasted a lot of minutes on players who were never going to be able to contribute in a game like this. Puckett has been a huge minus all year so why is she getting so many minutes in a game to make the Elite Eight? Her stat line is almost always empty. And if I see her jump out of the way to give an opposing player a clear line to the basket one more time I swear...

You make me laugh thinking the AD is going to have input on rotations

 

[turbovol]

Tennessee needs speed. Shoulda had Miles and Wynn in. Shoulda had them in more the whole season. Too slow and and

When you play Darby and get little or no scoring for you, then you've made a bad mistake playing her because she's not good defensively. So, yea, you have a point here.

 

[Darth_Vol]

Love Tess, but she has to figure out how to show up in big games

It's not her fault she isn't an SEC player...

 

[glv98]

Thud. Back to Earth and what a Long Strange Trip this year has been. Don't know about ya'll but I'm exhausted.

Pretty easy to assess where we are - about 10 pts away from being among the best teams. We can reliably take care of the underlings, but just as reliably come up short of elite or even semi-elite teams. It's a miracle we came back and beat LSU truthfully. Felt good to storm into the S16 rather than tiptoe like last yr. But got there and same ole same ole.

So many thoughts about the game tonight but mainly, what happened to Jill? Was she hurt or sick? How on Earth did Sara play twice the minutes Jill did? I really love Sara but WTF??? I was shocked Sara officially had no turnovers? I guess they put those fumbled passes on Rickea? I guess she should have known Sara couldn't catch them but IMO that's exactly why Jill should have been in.

So sorry for JoJo to go out on a dirty play that was way beneath her. We'll remember her as a fighter but preferably not that kind. I think she's going to really, really regret that play as time eases the pain.

I thought Powell played well and has the last few games. Get a good PG whose taller and can shoot to team with her and I think we'll be improved at that position next yr.

Obviously the lack of a reliable 3 pt shooter against better defenses killed us. Tess improved alot this yr, but I'm not sure she'll be able to take the next step and be effective against good teams. Like the team, Tess is about 10 pts shy of elite.

 

[T_Vol376]

That’s bush league by Jordan Walker. I’m glad I don’t have to watch her again.

Same. Totally unacceptable.

 

[Golfteacher]

Redemption tour came to an abrupt end. Now we know what we need in the portal, more speed, a consistent three shooter, and another scorer to go with Jackson. We need to work on boxing out, teaching Striplin and Holinshed better post moves, and teaching our ladies how to guard the three.

 

[Darth_Vol]

Same. Totally unacceptable.

Awful look for Walker and bad way to end her career.

Meanwhile the other Jordan can always reflect back on the (likely) last game of her Tennessee career and remember the selfish, boneheaded play that defined her career and cost her team a chance to play for the Final Four.

Next season we could very well see addition by subtraction...

 

[Golfteacher]

I forgot but we need a point guard who plays the majority of the games and has the ability to steer the team in the right direction. One that has somewhat of an offensive game.

 

[Darth_Vol]

Rickea coming back is the saving grace for this program.

I’m so over the Kellie Harper era. Call me a negavol if you want. The great off the court culture that everyone speaks of isn’t translating to success on the court. Results on the court matter too. How you lose matters. Outside of the momentum we built from the press, that was an embarrassing showing on both sides.

Over and out

But look at all the pictures of them hugging on Instagram. It's adorable...

 

[VolBall09]

If Horston comes back next season it’s a FF team IMO.

Striplin might find herself down the depth chart. Hollingshed and Key should split minutes at the 5.

Our roster will have experience we have not had in many, many years. If it is managed properly we should be very difficult to beat.

 

[djtee]

It's not her fault she isn't an SEC player...

That can be true ? But KJH said something in her press conference that i having saying for a long time. She said in this tournament it's not about the team seed, it is all about the matchups. And this is where Darby, Puckett,Striplin,Wynn,Pissott come in.They just don't match up well against the elite teams.

 

[BreatheUT]

Tess will be great if somebody is teaching her moving without the ball. Creating her shoots. I remembered watching Zolman. Opponent get tired Chasing ger around like Cury.when she doesn't play well, we're done.

Please don't bring up Zolman. It makes me sad thinking about the good ole days when our players came off the plane averaging 30 out of high school.

 

[glv98]

But look at all the pictures of them hugging on Instagram. It's adorable...

Not sure how you can dismiss the culture KJH has built when it just delivered us another season of Rickea. Of course culture alone won't get it done, gotta win the actual big games, but it's definitely important.

 

[Voluble2]

You make me laugh thinking the AD is going to have input on rotations

I could see how that would seem odd to you. It seems odd to me too. ADs do not want to micromanage programs so substitutions would not all that often be a subject of conversation. But Kellie is such an extreme outlier in that regard that it creates an issue which has to be addressed. Her subsitutions are a LARGE part of why we have one win against ranked opponents, and one could make an argument that it is the largest single factor in that bit of futility. So yeah, that is something which would come up in discussion with an AD if he sees it the same way.

Hell, in football It is not all that uncommon for an AD to demand an assistant coach who is responsible for an aspect of the program the AD finds unsatisfactory be let go as a condition of the head coach's further employment. That doesn't just happen out of the blue with no discussion as to what is going wrong beforehand. If they will do that then you bet your ass they absolutely will make a coach justify their substitution philosophy and make sure they know who is responsible for it.

In either case, I am glad you found it humorous. But I guarantee you that you did not find it half as humorous as our oppenents find it that we shoot ourselves in the foot the way we do.

 

[BreatheUT]

Same. Totally unacceptable.

What did she do?

 

[glv98]

Poor Jordy. I'm afraid she's just not going to be able to conquer the demons in this setting. It's so painful to watch. I'm afraid moving on to new surroundings might be the best thing for her game.

Yeah, getting aggressively physical with Jackson has been the game plan of UConn, LSU, and now Virginia Tech. They all made it really difficult for her and got away with some nasty fouls IMO. It'll be interesting to see what Jackson works on in the off-season but I imagine bulking up some could help her out in these kinds of situations.

If they're going to keep posting her, RJ will definitely need to bulk up some. But I'm not sure her frame would take much bulking up, also, what about the supermodeling career? Seriously, she shouldn't have to post up as much next yr, should play more facing the basket. That would prepare her better for her role in the WNBA. She can still slash to the rim, still have the sweet midrange game. Definitely needs to work on the 3 during the offseason, and the handle. She dribbles too hard and too high.

Even tho a little tenative on offense due to the physicality, I thought Rickea played some really good D in the tourney. That's another area of improvement that will help her in the W.

 

[T_Vol376]

What did she do?

 

[BreatheUT]

Definitely appeared dirty. It's hard to say if she really connected or if the player flopped.

 

[glv98]

Definitely appeared dirty. It's hard to say if she really connected or if the player flopped.

Sheesh, that's awful. Really hate seeing it. JW needs to apologize. KJH needs to see that she does.

 

[Remy]

One of the big things I've seen all season when we lose is we usually allow the other team to go on a run and do nothing to break their rhythm. The next step of this disaster happens frequently when we are struggling to score. This often follows where our hoop seems to have a lid on it preventing the ball to go in and we'fre settling for perimeter shots that are not falling.

What I'd like to see the staff do next year if this same trend occurs, when we see this development, ball not falling, other teram is on a scoring run, is call a time out. Coach should take the offense out of the hands of the floor players and have set plays that are to be run until we do score a couple of times, THEN take the brakes off and let them play again.

Also our staff has seen VT's Amoore twice this year and she hits her threes at basically two spots on the floor. Granted she shoots ghem from all over but makes them mostly from the same two spots. Why are we allowing her to get to those spots ... EVER?

 

[Voluble2]

So many thoughts about the game tonight but mainly, what happened to Jill? Was she hurt or sick? How on Earth did Sara play twice the minutes Jill did? I really love Sara but WTF??? I was shocked Sara officially had no turnovers? I guess they put those fumbled passes on Rickea? I guess she should have known Sara couldn't catch them but IMO that's exactly why Jill should have been in.

It is pretty clear that Kellie plays favorites. Everything about who we select to put on the court at any given time is a dog's breakfast.

Hollingshead matched up well and was able to give Kitley fits, but Puckett gets all of those minutes playing down low? I know Jill missed a couple but Sara's statline has been pretty much empty all year and she isn't really helping in any of the aspects which don't show up on the stat sheet either. I can see playing someone to get them out of a slump. But tournament time is not when you do that. You have to go with the hot hand and the better matchups.

Which reminds me, Kitley goes out and we need to cut the deficit so what do we do? We sit Horston, Jackson and Hollingshead at the same time. I will give Kellie credit for belatedly getting Darby and Striplin out and Jackson back in after we were down by ten. Usually it takes her longer to make adjustments like that and the deficit would be larger. And the one good move she made was having Jackson guard Kitley as much as she did. Rickea did a good job of that and most people never noticed it.