Game Thread: Lady Vols at No. 4/3 LSU; 7PM; ESPN2

[djtee]

The problem with this Tennessee team there are only 2 players that can really play multiple positions against the top teams. Jackson & Hortson.

 

[LadyVol1908]

So I was doing my daily Twitter stroll and apparent the refs took this game away from us in the 2nd half, any truth to that?

 

[th2421]

If that is your opinion fine but I could take a team like LSU or Duke and I think they lose to UConn, Stanford, Indiana, Ohio State early in the season when they had Levy, could very well lose to UCLA and Va Tech. and Duke could lose to LSU and vice versa. The only one you might take out is Gonzaga who beat Texas so they are not someone to be taken lightly. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they need to play the schedule first and then if your not SC, Stanford, or UConn see exactly where you are.

I'm with you on the scheduling. By advanced metrics this is one of Harper's best, if not the best, teams. Per Her Hoop Stats:

• Overall rating: #12 (next best was #24, in both of the last two seasons)
• Offensive rating: #14 (next best was #33 in 2020-21) - and this is going against the #11 schedule based on opponents' average defense rating.
• Defensive rating: #16 (2nd best, the best was last year at #10) - and this is going against the #2 schedule based on opponents' average offense rating.

So not only are these metrics trending better than previous seasons, our offense is better against better defenses, and our defense is better against better offenses. These are our best metrics/rankings as a program since the 2014-15 season, a team that won the SEC regular season title and advanced to the Elite 8. I agree with everyone that we still make too many mistakes on both ends, and especially, it seems, at key moments that kill momentum.

But if you look at the #1 difference this year and why the losses have piled up, it's the scheduling. It's a shame that the more winnable games against ranked teams came in the first half of the season, when we were playing with an unhealthy Tamari and still figuring out our chemistry, and the only opportunities for ranked wins in the latter half of the season have been against literally the top 3 teams in the country. The overall record and losses are what they are and it's extremely frustrating, but I think all of the doom and gloom is unwarranted if you actually dig into what happened and what's going on.

 

[luballer]

Key wouldn’t have made a difference, do u think she can guard Angel Reese? We don’t believe in moral victories, and I never go into a game thinking they will lose.

We have watched post players consistently struggle against Tamari for 3 years so I believe she would have slowed Reese especially if she was trying to play back to the basket. There are not many post players that have had great games head to head against Tamari. Most have gotten their points when she was in foul trouble. She has always played well against similar size post players. It’s the smaller ones that shoot 3s that give her the most trouble.

 

[Volfan2012]

I'm with you on the scheduling. By advanced metrics this is one of Harper's best, if not the best, teams. Per Her Hoop Stats:

• Overall rating: #12 (next best was #24, in both of the last two seasons)
• Offensive rating: #14 (next best was #33 in 2020-21) - and this is going against the #11 schedule based on opponents' average defense rating.
• Defensive rating: #16 (2nd best, the best was last year at #10) - and this is going against the #2 schedule based on opponents' average offense rating.

So not only are these metrics trending better than previous seasons, our offense is better against better defenses, and our defense is better against better offenses. These are our best metrics/rankings as a program since the 2014-15 season, a team that won the SEC regular season title and advanced to the Elite 8. I agree with everyone that we still make too many mistakes on both ends, and especially, it seems, at key moments that kill momentum.

But if you look at the #1 difference this year and why the losses have piled up, it's the scheduling. It's a shame that the more winnable games against ranked teams came in the first half of the season, when we were playing with an unhealthy Tamari and still figuring out our chemistry, and the only opportunities for ranked wins in the latter half of the season have been against literally the top 3 teams in the country. The overall record and losses are what they are and it's extremely frustrating, but I think all of the doom and gloom is unwarranted if you actually dig into what happened and what's going on.

The rewards of the tough schedule are 0 if you don't win. Where as LSU has proven you don't have to play a single top ten team to be ranked third in the nation and number two seed in the tourney. It may be something the fans like the tough schedule, but it seems to have no basketball value especially when you lose all of them. Still time to win some big games much more important than any we have lost. A lot harder to do it the hard way as a lower seed but still got a chance.

 

[DSunAthletics]

The reason this board lacks substance is certain posters are here only to discredit players and spread false information. Look at post-pre game analysis both nationally and locally no basketball analysts/writers are making any suggestions that Tennessee is outmatched in talent compared to top teams in WCBB. And the reason is because they simply aren’t. Every sport is a game of matchups. If Tenn wants to play fast then they have multiple players on the roster that can fit that style of play. If they wanted to play better on ball defense against PGs the defensive spark plug on last years S16 team was freshman now sophomore Brooklynn Miles. Miles hasn’t forgotten how to play defense. LSU is undefeated and neither of their three players off the bench last night would give anything more than the bench players on Tenn roster. I actually think Tenn bench is better than LSU bench. Nobody here is questioning LSU talent because this pushes the narrative about Tenn. Tenn does not have a talent issue, athleticism issue, or a speed issue. Jillian Hollingshead is as skilled a post player in college basketball. You develop talent, talent doesn’t develop itself. She can start at the 4 or the 5. Rickea can start at the 3 or 4. Horston can start 1-3. LSU freshman gets a lot of praise but is clearly a one dimensional player. The difference is that LSU coach accepts their player weaknesses and maximizes their strengths. Take Jillian right now and build her up as a player and stop waiting to see her become the kind of player she isn’t. Accept the weaknesses and strengths. She has star potential right now.

 

[alexvol]

They played a lot better defense than we did to prevent them from shooting that well.

The reason they shot better was their screening action ....the Gal who scored 31 had screens on every shot that she made....we do not know how to fight thru screens on defense or defense screens and conversely on offense we do not screen for our best shooters hence one-on -one basketball is played on the offensive end.

 

[Amb3096]

So I was doing my daily Twitter stroll and apparent the refs took this game away from us in the 2nd half, any truth to that?

No. Besides, has Tennessee ever lost where the fans aren't insisting the refs (on opponents home court, neutral site, at TBA) were favoring the other team?!?

Tennessee had a rebounding edge in the first half and held Angel had 4 pts and 4 rbds. In the 2nd half, they outrebounded Tennessee big time and Angel alone had 14 pts and 13 rbds. They were attacking the glass hard and they got rewarded at the FT line. Angel for sure earned all of her FT attempts, and I'd say that Morris did as well. For the most part, Tennessee tried to beat them with jump shots (especially Horston), and that was not the right game plan. LSU was defending them straight up and Tennessee took too many bad shots instead of working the ball around for the best shot.

 

[Amb3096]

We have watched post players consistently struggle against Tamari for 3 years so I believe she would have slowed Reese especially if she was trying to play back to the basket. There are not many post players that have had great games head to head against Tamari. Most have gotten their points when she was in foul trouble. She has always played well against similar size post players. It’s the smaller ones that shoot 3s that give her the most trouble.

Huge fan of Tamari's defense, but Reese is the kind of player where Tamari's defense might have slowed her down a little, but ultimately would have resulted in 5 fouls for Tamari in about 20 min of play and a double-double for Reese. She's not really a back to the basket player. She scores off drives, some post ups and a ton of putbacks.

 

[cabbie191]

Make no mistake: Our brand has already lost some luster; we haven't been to a Final Four in, what, 15+ years. And there is more competition
than ever.

Your best players have to show up in big games--and, unfortunately. Horston has been terrible--4-15 from the floor and the worst +/- on the team for the game. We don't have the quality depth for her to be lousy. It is amazing how utterly erratic she is./QUOTE]

Houston expended a lot of energy against UConn while getting over an illness, plus was gimpy at the end of that game. It’s quite possible she wasn’t 100% healthy against LSU.

 

[DSunAthletics]

So I was doing my daily Twitter stroll and apparent the refs took this game away from us in the 2nd half, any truth to that?

The officiating wasn’t good and 50/50 calls did all go in the home team favor. Puckett probably needs to sit down with the staff and discuss the importance of not letting the officiating become a distraction. She does get some bad calls but it’s impossible to play against your opponent and the official. So just move to the next play. I wouldn’t say the refs took the game because Tenn set in pretty good even through the 4th qtr at one point being down 53-52 after a missed free throw. Tenn has the roster to beat any SEC team. Out of the 8 losses, I wouldn’t shy away from playing any of those teams again in the NCAA tourney based on the roster. The PG for LSU scored 31 and that can’t happen if you’re J. Walker but she also proved last night that she’s a grown woman and natural leader having a career game as a LV.

 

[Gilmore]

Cora tweeted a criticism of not calling a t.o. during the game as well. Apparently she's on board the magical time out train. Wonder why she didn't ask Kellie post game? I hope she will, been wondering about the no t.o. trend all year. Rick Barnes doesn't use them often either.

Barnes also sits a player that is not playing disciplined ball within their game plan or that makes careless mistakes.

 

[lvocd]

The slower team is usually the one that fouls the most often. Tennessee has, by my eye tests, been the slower-footed (overall) team in at least 75% of the games they play. They do make up for some of that with heart, but really quick guards are always going to hurt us.

 

[DSunAthletics]

That is irrelevant to officiating. Officials make more than foul calls. And I’ve never seen many times where these college officials even call back to back charge/block calls the same on opposite ends of the court. These are judgement calls. And again, Tenn skill level was equal to LSU last night no matter how bias the observer might be. Over 31 free throw attempts to just 12 doesn’t have a thing to do with speed in the half court with most coming around the basket. The open court fouls were more of poor decisions on the defender.

 

[Gilmore]

Every game is different, if UConn shot the way they did against Villanova against us we would have won the game.

Tennessee continues to get everyone’s best shot. The brand still carries weight and beating us is a big deal to opposing teams. Why do you think LSU had its largest crowd? We need to be ready to go on Thursday.

 

[Volfaninfl2]

So I was doing my daily Twitter stroll and apparent the refs took this game away from us in the 2nd half, any truth to that?

In the 2nd half, TN made 5 of 8 free throws, LSU made 18 of 25 free throws (12 of 16 in the 4th quarter).

 

[volnationnj]

In the 2nd half, refs called 8 fouls on LSU, and called 25 fouls on Tennessee (16 of those in the 4th quarter).

Tennessee was deliberately fouling LSU in an effort to keep their hopes alive. LSU took 8 free throws over the last 41 seconds of the game alone.

 

[djtee]

No. Besides, has Tennessee ever lost where the fans aren't insisting the refs (on opponents home court, neutral site, at TBA) were favoring the other team?!?

Tennessee had a rebounding edge in the first half and held Angel had 4 pts and 4 rbds. In the 2nd half, they outrebounded Tennessee big time and Angel alone had 14 pts and 13 rbds. They were attacking the glass hard and they got rewarded at the FT line. Angel for sure earned all of her FT attempts, and I'd say that Morris did as well. For the most part, Tennessee tried to beat them with jump shots (especially Horston), and that was not the right game plan. LSU was defending them straight up and Tennessee took too many bad shots instead of working the ball around for the best shot.

If you really look at the stats from this game it was pretty much even. LSU Bench Points: 13 Tennessee Bench Points: 15 Rebounding 45-38 LSU and that is with Striplin getting 0 rbs

 

[Raebo]

Preseason rankings mean very little. What was LSU’s ranking?
On the men’s side North Carolina was #1 and now they are unranked. Purdue was unranked an about a month after the season started they were #1. Preseason rankings mean very little unless it is a team like South Carolina with a veteran team. With so many transfers, it is hard to know how a team is going to respond until they play a few games together.

 

[Darth_Vol]

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/spor...harper-should-want-back-lsu-loss/69826852007/

Apologies that this is behind a paywall. Hopefully someone can help me out and post the full article.

However, the gist is that Cora is calling Kellie out for not calling a timeout when LSU went on the game ending 12-0 run in the fourth quarter. She brakes down exactly what happened and notes, in each instance, how Kellie did not call a time out. I’m happy that a media member is directly addressing the atrocious coaching decision in this aspect of the game specifically.

Absolutely, Cora is outstanding. Puts the water carrying Maria to shame...

 

[Volfaninfl2]

Tennessee was deliberately fouling LSU in an effort to keep their hopes alive. LSU took 8 free throws over the last 41 seconds of the game alone.

In the 4th quarter, TN made 3 of 4 free throws, LSU made 12 of 16 free throws. LSU still got double the calls not counting the ending seconds, totally different from the first half where we attempted 4 free throws, and LSU attempted 6.

 

[madtownvol]

Cora tweeted a criticism of not calling a t.o. during the game as well. Apparently she's on board the magical time out train. Wonder why she didn't ask Kellie post game? I hope she will, been wondering about the no t.o. trend all year. Rick Barnes doesn't use them often either.

In regard to the Cora article, yep it is the magical time out theory once again.

I have done a little digging and as is so often the case, the analytics suggest something quite dfferent from the conventional wisdom. Here is an analysis of timeouts and runs in the NBA, where the statistical conclusion is:

We find that, on average, calling a timeout worsened the non-run team’s short-term performance compared to if no timeout was taken during an opposing run. In particular, the Indiana Pacers and the Utah Jazz short-term performance significantly declines from a timeout compared to if no timeout was taken, on average. No teams, on average, exhibit a significant gain in their short-term performance from a timeout compared to if no timeout was taken. https://ryansbrill.com/pdf/statistics_in_sports_papers/Causal_NBA_timeout.pdf

Now, I am sure many posters will say "this study is obviously wrong because I can remember a time when a coach called a timeout and it broke a run!!!."


Of course you do but you are not recalling the many other times where it had no effect or things got worse for the TO taking team. That memory bias is called selective recall. Analytics is not prone to such memory biases. The same reason why football coaches now go for it on 4th much more often than they used is the same reason more and more coaches are following the Phil Jackson approach of letting teams play through runs.

It turns out that substitutions and changing matchups is the more effective response to a run. And here is where perceptions can get conflated. Often when a coach calls a TO, they make line-up changes and that substitution is the critical factor not the timeout (and analytics can control for those two factors, subs and the TO, and tease out their relative effects).

So, the relevant criticism of Kellie is not her failure to call TOs but her substitution patterns, which have been a recurrent point of debate on this board all season.

I know the "magic timeout theory" will never die but sometimes I like shouting into the wind.

 

[VolNash17]

Anyone like the Smesko guy from FGCU? He wins all the time.

 

[chuckiepoo]

In regard to the Cora article, yep it is the magical time out theory once again.

I have done a little digging and as is so often the case, the analytics suggest something quite dfferent from the conventional wisdom. Here is an analysis of timeouts and runs in the NBA, where the statistical conclusion is:



Now, I am sure many posters will say "this study is obviously wrong because I can remember a time when a coach called a timeout and it broke a run!!!."


Of course you do but you are not recalling the many other times where it had no effect or things got worse for the TO taking team. That memory bias is called selective recall. Analytics is not prone to such memory biases. The same reason why football coaches now go for it on 4th much more often than they used is the same reason more and more coaches are following the Phil Jackson approach of letting teams play through runs.

It turns out that substitutions and changing matchups is the more effective response to a run. And here is where perceptions can get conflated. Often when a coach calls a TO, they make line-up changes and that substitution is the critical factor not the timeout (and analytics can control for those two factors, subs and the TO, and tease out their relative effects).

So, the relevant criticism of Kellie is not her failure to call TOs but her substitution patterns, which have been a recurrent point of debate on this board all season.

I know the "magic timeout theory" will never die but sometimes I like shouting into the wind.

 

[glv98]

In regard to the Cora article, yep it is the magical time out theory once again.

I have done a little digging and as is so often the case, the analytics suggest something quite dfferent from the conventional wisdom. Here is an analysis of timeouts and runs in the NBA, where the statistical conclusion is:



Now, I am sure many posters will say "this study is obviously wrong because I can remember a time when a coach called a timeout and it broke a run!!!."


Of course you do but you are not recalling the many other times where it had no effect or things got worse for the TO taking team. That memory bias is called selective recall. Analytics is not prone to such memory biases. The same reason why football coaches now go for it on 4th much more often than they used is the same reason more and more coaches are following the Phil Jackson approach of letting teams play through runs.

It turns out that substitutions and changing matchups is the more effective response to a run. And here is where perceptions can get conflated. Often when a coach calls a TO, they make line-up changes and that substitution is the critical factor not the timeout (and analytics can control for those two factors, subs and the TO, and tease out their relative effects).

So, the relevant criticism of Kellie is not her failure to call TOs but her substitution patterns, which have been a recurrent point of debate on this board all season.

I know the "magic timeout theory" will never die but sometimes I like shouting into the wind.

THANK YOU! I knew it! I knew there was an analytical out there bc it's not just Kellie and Rick, lots of coaches don't call t.o. to stop runs nowadays. It's almost not cool among top coaches.

I'm disappointed in Cora. Did she ask Kellie about it? Like at the presser last night? Has she ever asked? I mean we figured it out, couldn't she? How do you write that call out piece without simply asking why?

That said, I thought KJH might have used a t.o. late just to give Rickea and the Jordans a little breather. All were 30+ mins and pressing at that point.

Totally agree, the problem is sub patterns. She's always frustrated us with lineups and subs we didn't understand. This year, with the full roster, the problem has been on steroids.

Thanks for your research! If you really like whistling in the dark we could talk about trap games again . .