Game Thread: Iowa v Lady Vols, Sat Dec 7th ; Shark Beauty Women's Champions Classic; 7PM; FOX network TV; WIN 78-68

[Orange_Mamba]

It's just not accurate to say the previous staff never used Sara in the post. Sara posted alot last year. I saw her practice w the post group a few times. I don't remember Sara ever having a middy game however. All been 3s or post.

That was the gist of what I was saying. Sara’s physicality is more often than not suited in the post. I’ve been advocating on here since her sophomore yr for to be used in the post more. I feel like her being aggressive in the post the second half of last yr contributed to her shooting better overall to end the season. She started shooting more middys last yr too, after Rickea went out.

 

[Volfan2012]

I do think Jenna Burdette is next in line. She’s the one who knows the system and expectations best outside of Kim.

What I was thinking as well. I think she handles the subbing now.

 

[lvocd]

I have wondered that too lol. Trying to keep that BP in check

I am getting a little nervous about how that’s going to play out. If the baby comes in January she will miss a game at least. There are just too many too close and she won’t be able to travel within hours of giving birth.

I still have a sense she won’t be missing much though. Just that type of person, she’ll be there asap and Justin and her mom will be there to help her.

If she is not on the sideline I wouldn’t be surprised if we lose that game or two. Her team definitely responds to her. Not sure who would take the active coaching role. I suspect it would be Jenna.

Won't Justin be traveling with the men's team? I could be wrong, but I kinda doubt he'll be much help, or for very long. I'm guessing Kim's mother (and maybe Justin's mom???) will be the full-time help during the really hard early times.

As for Jenna taking over, I am wondering if she has a big enough head coach personality type to lead the team. She seems super quiet to me. I could be wrong because I only have casual observances to go on.

Loyalty-wise, she'd likely be Kim's choice. I just wonder if Jenna herself will actually want to be the face of the Lady Vols in games and in front of media. Might be too reserved to want all that. Or, maybe she's really a fireball! lol

Lazo may be her choice. He seems really engaged. Don't know.

 

[knoxvol52]

What I was thinking as well. I think she handles the subbing now.

Believe the "Ace" Recruiter Lazo will be heavily involved also.

 

[VolBall09]

Won't Justin be traveling with the men's team? I could be wrong, but I kinda doubt he'll be much help, or for very long. I'm guessing Kim's mother (and maybe Justin's mom???) will be the full-time help during the really hard early times.

As for Jenna taking over, I am wondering if she has a big enough head coach personality type to lead the team. She seems super quiet to me. I could be wrong because I only have casual observances to go on.

Loyalty-wise, she'd likely be Kim's choice. I just wonder if Jenna herself will actually want to be the face of the Lady Vols in games and in front of media. Might be too reserved to want all that. Or, maybe she's really a fireball! lol

Lazo may be her choice. He seems really engaged. Don't know.

I do not believe his job is a traveling position. I think he’s only on campus. I could be wrong but seemed that was the case.

 

[Volfan2012]

Won't Justin be traveling with the men's team? I could be wrong, but I kinda doubt he'll be much help, or for very long. I'm guessing Kim's mother (and maybe Justin's mom???) will be the full-time help during the really hard early times.

As for Jenna taking over, I am wondering if she has a big enough head coach personality type to lead the team. She seems super quiet to me. I could be wrong because I only have casual observances to go on.

Loyalty-wise, she'd likely be Kim's choice. I just wonder if Jenna herself will actually want to be the face of the Lady Vols in games and in front of media. Might be too reserved to want all that. Or, maybe she's really a fireball! lol

Lazo may be her choice. He seems really engaged. Don't know.

It is his job has to go where they go and men are never that much help anyway. Good to have her mother and mother in law around. Hope she makes it through the season fine think we do have the coaches that could step up if for any reason she has to be out.

 

[mudcat1973]

I do think Jenna Burdette is next in line. She’s the one who knows the system and expectations best outside of Kim.

I think someone said who coach during Kim talking some time off.
Can remember who but there's a plan in place.

 

[VolBall09]

Believe the "Ace" Recruiter Lazo will be heavily involved also.

Lazo is likely a future head coach. He’s so goofy though. Love him haha.

Hope we can keep this staff together for another 3-4 years and recruit the dickens out of our opponents. Would hate to lose Lazo because he is obviously a phenomenal recruiter.

 

[Lucy]

Sure didn't. And after losses, the comment section(s) would be a dumpster fire on the LV X account. Not a good look.

These days, if you look on X, there's a lot of excitement surrounding the program. I've seen dozens of comments that say something to the effect of, "I haven't watched the LVs in years and this is the best they've looked since Pat."

You understand what those people are “saying” makes no sense right? If they haven’t watched then how do they have a basis for comparison. Not a critique of your post just pointing out the problem with the quote.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

The Refs started out rough, but I thought it evened out as the game progressed. Could've fouled Olsen out as she uses that off hand to much to push defenders away. They finally called a couple could've called six more have a couple of players who also push off with their elbows

A big part of it is not forcing passes into the post, and having post players who can actually catch a pass. Love TK forever, but her hands were not good, nor were/are Jill's.

In the last two games, which were close late in the 4th quarters, I that in the last half od the 4th quarters, Coach had her best players in the game and they were much more selective in the shots they were taking and their shooting percetages were much higher than the earlier part of the games. In both games, they pull away and played for good wins. I think, during the SEC portion of season, coach will play a more conservative offensive game have a winning SEC record.

 

[Lucy]

Read some of the Iowa thread. Only a few negative comments against us, no more than our game threads when we aren't doing well. I think you grossly stereotype the Iowa fans the way their worst fans stereotype black players. They were some who were talking about how good the Lady Vols are. Most were bellyaching about their team or the officials. Sounds familiar in a game thread, doesn't it. The Iowa fans who are vocally racist should be called out. That is not acceptable. However, casting a team's fan base as racist due to a few idiots is uncalled for as well. (Fun fact: which politically tossup state swung the most democratic for Obama for both terms and then turned red after that- Iowa, apparent home of all racists)

A good post to remind us to not paint with such a broad brush. I’m sure there are Iowa fans who hate the thug (code) word use.
I am exhausted by our society sometimes.
Peace.

 

[Lucy]

Also Vol Nation has our own share of racists, homophobes, and sexists. But we'll never convince DP of that. He guards his personal insult like the king's ransom.

Agree with the first part but you/me have never walked in DP’s shoes.

 

[VolBall09]

Watching now curious what she says

 

[Lucy]

After the game the post game people kept saying how Tennessee got out rebounded. That is going to happen when you miss 47 shots to them missing 27 all those balls have to be rebounded either defensively or offensively. 20 more misses is almost assured you lose the defensive rebounding stat which is more than made up by their 30 turnovers to our nine. We again won the offensive boards if only slightly 13 to 11. The five for thirteen from the three is exactly what we need every time we play that was the key to winning last night.

I think I get what you’re saying in that a defensive rebound is more likely to happen than an offensive rebound on any possession. Therefore if team A misses a lot more shots than Team B, team B will have a rebounding advantage due to the defensive rebounding advantage. Makes sense but in previous games where we won the rebounding number didn’t we also have more missed shots?
I need to go back and look at those stats. What you said really explains things. Thanks!

 

[VolBall09]

Common theme so far for all opposing coaches post game is to have this smug look and say “well we will see how their system works against better competition.” Funny thing to say after you just lost to that system. Mostly they don’t think we’re going to be able to sub like we do.

Previous coaches said we wouldn’t be able to do it when we hit teams like FSU and Iowa…we just did. And we did it sticking to our game plan for the most part. Turned both teams over way more than their average, got way more looks at the basket and beat them on the offensive glass. Eventually wore them down and their mental and physical fatigue led to bad decisions and easy buckets for us.

Jan had kind of a sneery look and said “well we will see how they do with it in the SEC.”

They’re all underestimating how confident Kim is and how well she transfers that confidence on to her team. That’s what the best coaches are truly able to do. They have a vision, they have the confidence and they can make everyone around them believe in that vision and feed off their confidence.

You think Kim Mulkey isn’t confident? Geno? Dawn? Pat? That’s the common thread for all greats and Kim has that.

 

[Lucy]

Won't Justin be traveling with the men's team? I could be wrong, but I kinda doubt he'll be much help, or for very long. I'm guessing Kim's mother (and maybe Justin's mom???) will be the full-time help during the really hard early times.

As for Jenna taking over, I am wondering if she has a big enough head coach personality type to lead the team. She seems super quiet to me. I could be wrong because I only have casual observances to go on.

Loyalty-wise, she'd likely be Kim's choice. I just wonder if Jenna herself will actually want to be the face of the Lady Vols in games and in front of media. Might be too reserved to want all that. Or, maybe she's really a fireball! lol

Lazo may be her choice. He seems really engaged. Don't know.

They may rotate press duties.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

Read some of the Iowa thread. Only a few negative comments against us, no more than our game threads when we aren't doing well. I think you grossly stereotype the Iowa fans the way their worst fans stereotype black players. They were some who were talking about how good the Lady Vols are. Most were bellyaching about their team or the officials. Sounds familiar in a game thread, doesn't it. The Iowa fans who are vocally racist should be called out. That is not acceptable. However, casting a team's fan base as racist due to a few idiots is uncalled for as well. (Fun fact: which politically tossup state swung the most democratic for Obama for both terms and then turned red after that- Iowa, apparent home of all racists)

I read many of the hate comments, and I never mentioned anything about being racist, I said they spread Hate, and I’m not saying it’s 100% of the people but it’s a lot of them, u even have a few of them in here masquerading. What does Obama have do do with this, Obama is half white, maybe that’s why they voted for him.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

Also Vol Nation has our own share of racists, homophobes, and sexists. But we'll never convince DP of that. He guards his personal insult like the king's ransom.

I’ve agreed some are on here, but I don’t see LadyVols fans all over social media spreading this kind of hate everyday, or no other fan base.

 

[th2421]

It's just not accurate to say the previous staff never used Sara in the post. Sara posted alot last year. I saw her practice w the post group a few times. I don't remember Sara ever having a middy game however. All been 3s or post.

One thing I'm enjoying with this Bart Torvik site now tracking women's stats/ratings is they have a breakdown for "close 2s" and "far 2s" (apparently layups and tips count as close 2s and everything else is a far 2). On the season, Sara is 4-11 on close 2s (36%) and 6-18 on far 2s (33%). Just not good all around. Cooper and Whitehorn are the only other players with more than 10 "far 2" attempts on the season, and Cooper's at 49% (22-45) and Whitehorn is worse than Sara at 30% (8-27).

 

[madtownvol]

So nice, to have a great showing on a high profile national broadcast!

The LVs turning the game into a double digit is really impressive in the overall context of the game.

This team has a clear identity and a lot of confidence that they can close it out with their defensive pressure.

This game had a lot of factors that could have generated a potential loss. The LVs had great pressure with 30 TOs but their shooting was "nightmare on elm st." material. It was just not the abysmal 24% from 3 but they missed a lot of very makeable shots at the rim. Even their FT shooting was not stellar (68%).

The half court defense was better. Yes, there were still situations where got out position-- like sending three players to ball or did not track a cutter for easy buckets-- but those situations were fewer than past games.

I think we can continue to expect improvements in the half court and the team will have better shooting nights. This aggressive style of defense is going to generate some fouls but there are still some silly ones that can be cleaned up (Cooper in particular who is too important to have to sit for extended periods).

The one trade-off with this system that will be harder to correct is the rebounding deficit. The offensive boards were pretty event (13 to 11 in favor of the LVs) but Iowa dominated the defensive glass. Given that the LVs are a very perimeter oriented team. opponents will also have a good chance at getting the rebounding positions and box outs in the paint. Though, Ruby did a nice job in crashing in finding space to grab some boards. Against, Iowa, the TO disparity more than compensated for the rebounding gap but controlling the boards does slow this team down.

PS,, though there is plenty of season left, Tess making a bigger contribution to this point than Jewel was not on my bingo card.

 

[th2421]

Common theme so far for all opposing coaches post game is to have this smug look and say “well we will see how their system works against better competition.” Funny thing to say after you just lost to that system. Mostly they don’t think we’re going to be able to sub like we do.

Previous coaches said we wouldn’t be able to do it when we hit teams like FSU and Iowa…we just did. And we did it sticking to our game plan for the most part. Turned both teams over way more than their average, got way more looks at the basket and beat them on the offensive glass. Eventually wore them down and their mental and physical fatigue led to bad decisions and easy buckets for us.

Jan had kind of a sneery look and said “well we will see how they do with it in the SEC.”

They’re all underestimating how confident Kim is and how well she transfers that confidence on to her team. That’s what the best coaches are truly able to do. They have a vision, they have the confidence and they can make everyone around them believe in that vision and feed off their confidence.

You think Kim Mulkey isn’t confident? Geno? Dawn? Pat? That’s the common thread for all greats and Kim has that.

I thought she gave us good credit for their mistakes, noting that they made a lot of unforced errors in the half-court but that was in large part due us speeding them up and throwing them off mentally. I didn't think she was being "sneery" when talking about how we'll do in the SEC, but I did think her remark about wanting to get another shot going against us immediately after or the next day was interesting, since we're so hard to prepare for. I guess I'm glad there's only one SEC double match-up per season now! And it will be interesting to see what rematches in the SEC tournament look like after a team has already played us once.

 

[butchna]

We lose this kind of game dating back to the prime Summitt years…different times.

 

[VolBall09]

I thought she gave us good credit for their mistakes, noting that they made a lot of unforced errors in the half-court but that was in large part due us speeding them up and throwing them off mentally. I didn't think she was being "sneery" when talking about how we'll do in the SEC, but I did think her remark about wanting to get another shot going against us immediately after or the next day was interesting, since we're so hard to prepare for. I guess I'm glad there's only one SEC double match-up per season now! And it will be interesting to see what rematches in the SEC tournament look like after a team has already played us once.

I don’t really think it matters how many times you see it. The system is so different it’s hard to play against. Time will tell, certainly. But the decision fatigue our opponents face isn’t going to change just because it’s the second time we play.

It’s not just the decisions you have to make against the pressure. The constant lineup changes make it so hard to keep track of matchups and scouts. She mentioned as much, that they got mentally fatigued and missed a couple scouts in the fourth quarter that really cost them. Mostly straight up losing Tess on that big 3. Just can’t leave her that wide open. If not for all the lineup changes probably shes better guarded there. But every two minutes you have to switch gears and defend completely different.

Also discounts the idea that we won’t have learned from the first matchup also. If we play a second time I think we win by 20 because we likely don’t shoot as poorly and Kim is obviously a very good coach who will make adjustments.

 

[glv98]

One thing I'm enjoying with this Bart Torvik site now tracking women's stats/ratings is they have a breakdown for "close 2s" and "far 2s" (apparently layups and tips count as close 2s and everything else is a far 2). On the season, Sara is 4-11 on close 2s (36%) and 6-18 on far 2s (33%). Just not good all around. Cooper and Whitehorn are the only other players with more than 10 "far 2" attempts on the season, and Cooper's at 49% (22-45) and Whitehorn is worse than Sara at 30% (8-27).

Which is why some coaches devoted to analytics want far 2s to go away. They're difficult apparently.

Heard a podcast w Lynne Roberts, the LA Sparks new coach. She lives and breathes analytics and last yr at Utah her team shot almost 90% near 2s and 3s. Her emphasis is not on having a big advantage on possessions or attempts, instead to focus on per attempt efficiency. All about shot selection, and players are closely coached on what a "good shot" is for them. Which rarely turns out to be a middy.

She was quick to add the pros have lots more skills and "good shots" are more varied for them. Says she's not out to fix what ain't broke. Made me feel alot better about Rickea's one foot fade away but we'll see.

 

[madtownvol]

We lose this kind of game dating back to the prime Summitt years…different times.

Huh? We lose this game in the prime Summitt years. That is quite some revisionist history.