In the article in the Arkansas newspaper:
If you click on the article link, then click on its link for more photos: In almost every photo showing a Razorback player taking a shot or making a drive, you will see two or three orange jerseys defending!
That brings up a bone for Kellie to pick at during film session. We had three orange jerseys underneath on a missed Ark FG attempt, and yet somehow a weak side guard was able to slip in between them to gather the ball, hit a layup, and draw a foul in the process (converted the ft to cut our lead to three late in game). No excuse for not boxing out; all three of our players were caught standing straight up gawking.
Always good to read the opposition's local newspaper after a win...
No. 7 Tennessee rallies past Arkansas women
I said during the off season that Tamari may not be the best player on the team, but she's their most important. The way she single handedly disrupts opposing team offenses with her size, length and shot blocking more than compensates for their spotty shooting and will keep Tennessee in most games. As long as she continues to do her thing, you can't count out Tennessee. There are very few SEC teams that have the right combination of interior/perimeter players to muscle through this defense. Outside of SC, LSU and UGA, I can't imagine any other SEC teams having enough size and firepower to seriously threaten Tennessee.Yes! Not even the worst critic of Tennessee can take away the FACT that they have been consistently outstanding in this area, nor dispute that this is a particularly helpful area to be excelling in. It cannot be that nearly every single team Tennessee has played has simply “had an off night shooting.” The Lady Vols’ length and defense affects a lot of their shots, and even the open shots opponents sometimes get have been altered by their own wavering confidence — caused by our good defense.
Final thoughts on the game not one of our best performances of the season. We can play a lot better defensively even if they only shot 30 percent and 20 from the three most of it was on them they had some really excellent open looks. Glad the Refs called 29 of the plus 50 fouls Arkansas committed at least calling that many gave us a chance to win. Arkansas shot 40 threes which I thought was poor judgement on their part as it turned out to be a large factor as to why they lost the game. Great to win when you don't play your best as a team defensively, but had some players really come through offensively. Dye had her best game 6 of 9 from the field and Green was 4 of 4 and hit 3 of 4 from the line. Key of course was a player they could not guard Arkansas got away with a lot of fouls and many of them while guarding Key and a few more guarding Horston. Big win on the road just hoping we'll get in a different pattern of getting in winning position way before five minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Jordan looked off, which is not surprising given that she missed two games with illness. She was had a couple of bad shooting nights before that and the team really needs her to break out of this slump.
It will be interesting to see Rae's progression as she works back in the line-up. For this team to really separate from SEC competition (i.e. win by comfortable margins) without an impactful Rae and Horston. They need that offensive spark. Hopefully, it will only be one or two more games before both are back full strength and no more injuries to anyone.
It's been astounding to me to see what this team has done without Rae and Jordy, sometimes in games without one of them, sometimes without both of them. Rae is the go-to scorer and cool customer senior leader, and Jordy is the high-energy, do it all athlete that is depended on for so many things. That this team is 13-1 now is huge. lIke you say, if we can get both back in good health and conditioning, look out SEC.
As to Jordy's slump, I was surprised to see her overall shooting % so far (36) is about what it was last year (35), but not surprised to see her 3-ball % is down alot from 28 to 17%. Her FT % is down from 73 to 66. But her rebounds are up from 3.9 to 9.2 rpg.
Her numbers have really dropped in the last few games. She was shooting much than last year in the earlier part of the season but went 5-19 against stanford and 3-13 yesterday which is 25% across those two games. (she was 3-9 against ETSU, which given the level of the comp is a little low as well). Yesterday, she missed in an almost identical on 3 or 4 shots where she got to the rim but shot the ball short, where it almost got stuck between rim and backboard. It seemed like she was going for a bank shot but got the angles all wrong. A few good sessions in the gym and she should be able to work off that bit of rust.