Game Thread Lady Vols vs Wichita State

[Coach Jumper]

Believe you missed with that prediction Coach. Wish it had been accurate. Shades of the last two seasons. Or maybe the first two opponents had us looking through rose colored glasses.

This was a distressing game to watch.

No passion on the floor and even less from the bench.
No trust in the bench players at all.
(((KD had two turnovers, she also had a monster putback!....Meme was instrumental in the beginning of the Q3 run(Why sub her?),,,KK looked ready to jump out of her skin (Why not try 2 or 3 bigs,,, They didn't press our guards, it would have been a perfect time to try something like that instead of staying with a 3 guard set all game).... Green DID look sluggish. I believe MR would have dusted her in a BL to BL race,,,And Harris Who?,,The enigma continues.),)))

Accepting of lackluster play to open the game.
Subbing by habit instead of by instance or "flow".
Pitiful free throw shooting
No use of timeout's to stop runs or interupt momentum. Or even to stop our spiraling-play.
No mixing it up on "sets" (No hi-low, no 3-post sets instead of 3-guard sets).

I'm not impressed.
Neither was the crowd in the stands.
I sit around several posters and longtime fans and I saw and heard uncertainty ... things I don't like to hear.

This was NOT a "good win for us" ... We tripped over a defeat and fell into a win!

 

[Martic]

Annie Hayes has been to the line a shocking 32 times in three games. She has made 25 for 78 percent. She needs to be a starter she makes things happen in a game.

we need someone to give us a spark off the bench!

 

[mike099]

This was a distressing game to watch.

No passion on the floor and even less from the bench.
No trust in the bench players at all.
(((KD had two turnovers, she also had a monster putback!....Meme was instrumental in the beginning of the Q3 run(Why sub her?),,,KK looked ready to jump out of her skin (Why not try 2 or 3 bigs,,, They didn't press our guards, it would have been a perfect time to try something like that instead of staying with a 3 guard set all game).... Green DID look sluggish. I believe MR would have dusted her in a BL to BL race,,,And Harris Who?,,The enigma continues.),)))

Accepting of lackluster play to open the game.
Subbing by habit instead of by instance or "flow".
Pitiful free throw shooting
No use of timeout's to stop runs or interupt momentum. Or even to stop our spiraling-play.
No mixing it up on "sets" (No hi-low, no 3-post sets instead of 3-guard sets).

I'm not impressed.
Neither was the crowd in the stands.
I sit around several posters and longtime fans and I saw and heard uncertainty ... things I don't like to hear.

This was NOT a "good win for us" ... We tripped over a defeat and fell into a win!

Thanks for the comments.

I like MeMe starting. She is active and seems to be the glue on defense. I like Annie coming off the bench as she gets a chance to see the action before coming in.

Even if you lose a few games, put KK and Harris out there at least a few minutes at a time. Harris does look at bit out sorts when she is in there, but she does attempt to box out in the little I have seen her.
Practice is practice, but real time play is valuable.

Evina does the little things well and seems to be in control.

And yes, I still do not understand not calling time outs when the game shifts out of control.

 

[vol-un-tear]

Well the bright side is we won 😁. Last year we would have lost. This team will improve.

 

[lvocd]

Not an outstanding performance by any means,but we did get an answer to who picks up the slack when Nared has a bad shooting night. Davis,Hayes,and Westbrook were the difference tonight along with the steady performance by Russell. Good to know,but defense and free throw shooting must improve. Remember that Wichita State had eight seniors,so they were experienced and controlled tempo most of the night. Still a good learning experience for our youngsters.

I'm glad Tennessee pulled out the win, but Wichita came into Knoxville 0-3 with those 8 experienced seniors, including losses against two teams that probably should be considered cupcakes on THEIR schedule.

So, no, I'm not exactly feeling great about how long the struggling Shockers hung in with the #12 ranked team. It was the kind of game that makes me worry that we'll soon be pulling our hair out after an exasperating loss against a team we had zero business losing to -- again.

And YES, I KNOW, it's early! I agree that we shouldn't get down because of a mere win that should have been a blowout beginning horn to the end.

That said, last night's game was definitely an emotional trigger for many of us who are ultra sensitive to the strong pattern set over the past many seasons. Last night felt "off" in a sadly familiar way. :ermm:

 

[mlindsay]

we need someone to give us a spark off the bench!

You wouldn't need a spark if you held players accountable.
If players understood they would sit for poor play they would step their game up imo. I like Russell but when she is gassed she becomes extremely lazy and don't even attempt to go after rebounds nor contest shots.

There are stretches of the game when she should be bench but Holly wont dare to do it and that is the problem imo.

I hate to say it and I know they are Hall of Fame coaches but Geno and Pat have routinely sat their star players if they weren't playing the way they needed to play. Holly has yet to do so. Sometimes as a coach you must set an example and often times your star player must be held to a higher standard so that others no that type of behavior is not tolerated.

Geno bench Stewie, Tina Charles, Dolson (several times), and Maya Moore (of this era) to send a message.

 

[alexvol]

We were stagnant tonight offensively and defensively, but they found a way to win, that's encouraging. Russell needs as many minutes as she can get, she hasn't played in the fourth quarter in the previous two games.

Relax.

We have been stagnant against zone defenses for 5 years now.

 

[PRG]

You wouldn't need a spark if you held players accountable.
If players understood they would sit for poor play they would step their game up imo. I like Russell but when she is gassed she becomes extremely lazy and don't even attempt to go after rebounds nor contest shots.

There are stretches of the game when she should be bench but Holly wont dare to do it and that is the problem imo.

I hate to say it and I know they are Hall of Fame coaches but Geno and Pat have routinely sat their star players if they weren't playing the way they needed to play. Holly has yet to do so. Sometimes as a coach you must set an example and often times your star player must be held to a higher standard so that others no that type of behavior is not tolerated.

Geno bench Stewie, Tina Charles, Dolson (several times), and Maya Moore (of this era) to send a message.

Holly sat DD a lot last year but to no avail???
She pulled others when they were really stupid! But the last few years they were individual and not a team...... These freshmen are all winners and come from a team first environment! They will not quit and you can tell that they play with a do or die attitude and heart. They will be winners just with their efforts.

I agree with pulling MR... even if for a different look so you make the other team to adjust and stop the double teaming. Besides she needs some rest time. Holly has been pulling her before the end of each time period but not so much last night??? Holly should have made some coaching moves but stayed with same old same and it almost cost us? JMO

 

[Benionsopinion]

I'm glad Tennessee pulled out the win, but Wichita came into Knoxville 0-3 with those 8 experienced seniors, including losses against two teams that probably should be considered cupcakes on THEIR schedule.

So, no, I'm not exactly feeling great about how long the struggling Shockers hung in with the #12 ranked team. It was the kind of game that makes me worry that we'll soon be pulling our hair out after an exasperating loss against a team we had zero business losing to -- again.

And YES, I KNOW, it's early! I agree that we shouldn't get down because of a mere win that should have been a blowout beginning horn to the end.

That said, last night's game was definitely an emotional trigger for many of us who are ultra sensitive to the strong pattern set over the past many seasons. Last night felt "off" in a sadly familiar way. :ermm:

Your points are all valid and all of us have watched performances like this end in defeat at the hands of teams which had no business beating the Lady Vols. What was encouraging in my view was seeing the freshmen refuse to fall into the lackluster mentality of going through the motions. They led by example when the team's leader (Nared) really struggled to the point of poor offense affecting her defense. That is what I mean by saying the freshmen picked up the slack when Nared didn't play well. Over the past few seasons,our Ladies seemingly had the mentality that when their leaders were off in performance that it was time for all to be so. That didn't show from the freshmen,who seem to all have a winner's mentality. One of the things which help make a team better is for players to pick up their effort when one or more are having an off night. We saw that last night and can look forward to more of the same. As an afterthought,this mentality might rub off on the upperclassmen also,and that would be great!

 

[PRG]

We have been stagnant against zone defenses for 5 years now.

That’s going to change with our guards.... Annie will attack a zone with her ability to penetrate. And you saw Evina start to penetrate some also... against a zone ....penetration causes a reaction by the defense... if they don’t stop you , you take the ball to the goal and draw fouls...if they move to stop you then they left their person they were guarding and the assist is coming!!!! This is why Annie is getting so many assist and foul shots. Different game than pass the ball around until someone has to jack up a three point shot. They will be fun to watch but some growing pains are eminent!

 

[Chops123]

Holly sat DD a lot last year but to no avail???
She pulled others when they were really stupid! But the last few years they were individual and not a team...... These freshmen are all winners and come from a team first environment! They will not quit and you can tell that they play with a do or die attitude and heart. They will be winners just with their efforts.

I agree with pulling MR... even if for a different look so you make the other team to adjust and stop the double teaming. Besides she needs some rest time. Holly has been pulling her before the end of each time period but not so much last night??? Holly should have made some coaching moves but stayed with same old same and it almost cost us? JMO

Holly seemed to be coaching scared. Afraid to lose rather than to win. She seems sometimes to forget who she has on the bench. A lot of standing with hands on her hips rather than coaching mistakes . Bring back the Summit glare.

 

[Decker Moss]

Not a great game, but I am very impressed with the three freshman that played last night. I know Westbrook is quiet but she brings a calm and steadiness to the team and she is just a freshman. Like many posters, I agree, if this was last year’s team, we would have lost that game.

 

[madtownvol]

Holly seemed to be coaching scared. Afraid to lose rather than to win. She seems sometimes to forget who she has on the bench. A lot of standing with hands on her hips rather than coaching mistakes . Bring back the Summit glare.

Oh, back to "Hands on the hips" thing, greeaaat.

Look the team came out and took control of the game in the 2nd half. If they had FT and made their lay-ups at the rim, they would have run away with this game.

People say that Holly did not use To to quell Wichita State's momentum but they never really had momentum. The game tended to be scoreless possession after scoreless possession with WS hitting for more occasional shots to build a 4 to 6 pt. lead until the LVs made their 3rd quarter push, lead by Davis.

I don't think it pays to read to much into a game that falls right before the team had to leave for a tournament in Cancun. They had an off night. Let's see how the tournament goes.

 

[Nuyoika]

You wouldn't need a spark if you held players accountable.
If players understood they would sit for poor play they would step their game up imo. I like Russell but when she is gassed she becomes extremely lazy and don't even attempt to go after rebounds nor contest shots.

There are stretches of the game when she should be bench but Holly wont dare to do it and that is the problem imo.

I hate to say it and I know they are Hall of Fame coaches but Geno and Pat have routinely sat their star players if they weren't playing the way they needed to play. Holly has yet to do so. Sometimes as a coach you must set an example and often times your star player must be held to a higher standard so that others no that type of behavior is not tolerated.

Geno bench Stewie, Tina Charles, Dolson (several times), and Maya Moore (of this era) to send a message.

I agree with with you to an extent but the coach has to be willing to lose the game to make that point. Most coaches aren't willing to do that. It was hard to take Russell out because when they did Wichita State went on a little run. Also, when the offense would break down they basically turned MR into Alaina Coates and were just lobbing it in to her and letting her toss it up over much shorter defenders. That was working flawlessly although it was puzzling that they seemed to have a hard time getting anything other than that for the majority of the 1st half. That one kid got the same shot in the same spot on the floor 5 times in a couple minutes and hit 3 of them. They waited til half time to make an adjustment on her.

I was hoping to really see them work some true half court offense and there wasn't a whole lot of it. It seems like this team needs steals & transition buckets to keep its energy level up. If they don't get that and have to sit on defense for 20+ seconds (which is what Wichita St. offense is designed to do) per possession they get unmotivated on offense. As they get more comfortable with each other that should get better.

 

[Chops123]

Oh, back to "Hands on the hips" thing, greeaaat.

Look the team came out and took control of the game in the 2nd half. If they had FT and made their lay-ups at the rim, they would have run away with this game.

People say that Holly did not use To to quell Wichita State's momentum but they never really had momentum. The game tended to be scoreless possession after scoreless possession with WS hitting for more occasional shots to build a 4 to 6 pt. lead until the LVs made their 3rd quarter push, lead by Davis.

I don't think it pays to read to much into a game that falls right before the team had to leave for a tournament in Cancun. They had an off night. Let's see how the tournament goes.

If they had made free throws and lay ups. what is that ? if they score 120 points a game they will be national champs. If don't hack it. if a bullfrog had wings he wouldn't have a sore butt.

 

[VA_VOLFAN]

I agree with with you to an extent but the coach has to be willing to lose the game to make that point. Most coaches aren't willing to do that. It was hard to take Russell out because when they did Wichita State went on a little run. Also, when the offense would break down they basically turned MR into Alaina Coates and were just lobbing it in to her and letting her toss it up over much shorter defenders. That was working flawlessly although it was puzzling that they seemed to have a hard time getting anything other than that for the majority of the 1st half. That one kid got the same shot in the same spot on the floor 5 times in a couple minutes and hit 3 of them. They waited til half time to make an adjustment on her.

I was hoping to really see them work some true half court offense and there wasn't a whole lot of it. It seems like this team needs steals & transition buckets to keep its energy level up. If they don't get that and have to sit on defense for 20+ seconds (which is what Wichita St. offense is designed to do) per possession they get unmotivated on offense. As they get more comfortable with each other that should get better.

When you didn’t see a whole lot of offense was because they were stagnant. TN runs a motion offense and when they are actually cutting you actually see some offense instead of waiting around for someone to make the shot. They did Nared like DD a little bit like here is the ball and do something with it. Rennia, Annie, and E when they are cutting and the offense opens up so much more all over the court.

 

[teacherdean]

UT needs a real coach

I don’t think we can blame it all on coaching. This is still a very young team that plays three freshmen a lot. They kept short arming shots and Nared had an awful night. They also missed a lot of short shots. They also could have been looking past Wichita. I think we need to give the coaches a little slack on this one and chalk it up to a bad night.

 

[Volfan2012]

We wouldn't be talking about this game so much if the easy layups and short jumpers we missed had fallen. If we could've hit a few more free throws. 4 of those 15 easy baskets and 7 of those 14 free throws we missed makes this game a blowout of 27 points.
I agree with Holly that we took to many quick three pointers and were really not a three point shooting team.
We also made way to many passes from the perimeter to the post. It is better to penetrate and hit the post if you can. Trying to lob from the perimeter is not a great play never has been and it has been something we love to do over the last few season.
I'm not to worried as I think Jaime will bounce back with a good game. Were gonna have it tough anytime she goes 3 for 16 no matter who we play.

 

[teacherdean]

wished she had a better hook shot

A lot of MR’s issues are the result of the poor coaching big post women receive at the high school and college level. Remember that Brittany Griner had to be taught the finer points of playing the post position when she went pro. Russell is far from ready for the pro game. She will get abused at the pro level until she receives proper coaching. She is not as physical as she needs to be, she gets the ball taken away from her, even by smaller players, she plays out of position a lot and spends a lot of minutes watching the game when she is on the floor. The potential is there but is very inconsistent.

 

[FrozenLVFan]

I find it difficult to attribute all of Russell's issues to poor coaching. Taking plays off, standing around, and shying away from contact are related to attitude and motivation and are not things that can be readily coached up. Things directly related to coaching, like her footwork and hook shots, have improved over the past 4 years. CHW keeps saying MR has a tremendous BB IQ...if that's true then there's no excuse for standing around and not boxing out. I also recall that Parker and GloJo have praised Lockwood for his coaching of them.

 

[volfanIND]

The only major bad coaching move that I saw last night was putting MR at the top of the 3-2. I can't recall ever CHW doing this ... however, it did the job of altering shots on the perimeter... but I clearly remember giving up a LOT of offensive rebounds. I recall Nared and Jackson/Davis being on the low black when this was happening. I would of rather seen her put Davis at the top of the 3-2 and keeping MR on the block.

 

[gule]

It's called "experimenting with options"

nothing wrong with giving future opponents something additional to worry about also.

Now, if they put her at point guard, I'd ***** too.

 

[gule]

Nicky A. played out at the front many times under Pat.

 

[armchair]

We wouldn't be talking about this game so much if the easy layups and short jumpers we missed had fallen. If we could've hit a few more free throws. 4 of those 15 easy baskets and 7 of those 14 free throws we missed makes this game a blowout of 27 points.
I agree with Holly that we took to many quick three pointers and were really not a three point shooting team.
We also made way to many passes from the perimeter to the post. It is better to penetrate and hit the post if you can. Trying to lob from the perimeter is not a great play never has been and it has been something we love to do over the last few season.
I'm not to worried as I think Jaime will bounce back with a good game. Were gonna have it tough anytime she goes 3 for 16 no matter who we play.

is one of the reasons we struggle. You have to make threes--and you especially have to make threes if you are facing a zone defense. We only shot 12 threes; these days, that is a fairly low number. Warlick, never far from her 1985 coaching mode, always gripes about taking too many threes and--have you heard this one--not getting the ball inside. Then we try to force it into Russell and commit turnovers. Making threes is how you loosen up a defense--create space for our inside players. If you cannot make threes, the opponent will just pack it in and wait for us to make a bad pass.

 

[007Racer]

Russell is not that player in your mind. She is the player, we have seen a past few years defensively. Get that imaginary beasty 6'6" Leslie Leslie type player defensively out of your mind.


She still watches a lot on defense and doesn't have a lot of activity, and she's not a rim protector, i do agree, we give up way too many layups and she has to contest or jump out of area (jumping and not landing in the same spot) but she does a lot other things well and is one of the best centers in the game. (If her defensive presence matched her offensive presence, she would be on the road to beasty. All American for sure.)

Mercedes can still get so much better. How scary is that?

Holly is letting her Freshman play through mistakes, she doesn't want them to be timid. Holly do your thing.

What you want more guards like Jordan Reynolds? Indecisive, timid. NO! They are smart players, they will figure it out.

Stop the hate. Congratulate a Win.

So, I'm hating because i'm pointing out things your best center in basketball and freshmen players are doing wrong! I don't think so! Especially since you point out the same things I was saying. You probably knew Pat better than I did, but you don't treasure the values she had. My daughter played for Pat and one thing she had to learn early on was to value each possession like it was your last. She didn't let you play through things that should be taught in high school, especially if you're everybodys ALL AMERICAN! I'm all Vol, but some of you need to face reality, This is Big Time Basketball! Get with the program or learn to, by sitting and watching until you do! Go Lady Vols!