Massengale, Lady Vols Hold Off UGA, 85-70

[VN News]

Ariel Massengale's strong second-half play and career-best 28 points helped No. 5/5 Tennessee withstand a late surge by No. 19/18 Georgia for an 85-70 Lady Vol road win on Sunday.

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[W.TN.Orange Blood]

Yep, another close game till the end that was almost given away after a 28 point lead.

 

[armchair]

Strong defensive effort plus great game from Massengale and Harrison. The downside: 9 assists and 20 turnovers, not good. Simmons: 0 assists and 4 turnovers. Coaches have failed badly to develop her. She is a senior guard with skills and yet is a terrible passer. It's one reason why this team struggles more than it should. Jones is playing more because of her defense but she is not much help offensively. Maybe SHE will develop a bit of an offensive game. Need to learn to pass the ball into the low post. UT is not a good passing team and that ultimately will hurt this team against the top teams--that's what 9 assists vs. 20 turnovers indicates. Bad passing.

 

[VolUpInCumming]

Strong defensive effort plus great game from Massengale and Harrison. The downside: 9 assists and 20 turnovers, not good. Simmons: 0 assists and 4 turnovers. Coaches have failed badly to develop her. She is a senior guard with skills and yet is a terrible passer. It's one reason why this team struggles more than it should. Jones is playing more because of her defense but she is not much help offensively. Maybe SHE will develop a bit of an offensive game. Need to learn to pass the ball into the low post. UT is not a good passing team and that ultimately will hurt this team against the top teams--that's what 9 assists vs. 20 turnovers indicates. Bad passing.

Bad passing = bad coaching.

 

[OLW1948]

Bad passing = bad coaching.

Bad passing doesn't necessarily equate to bad coaching. It is due to poor judgment and/or execution by the players when they are on the court. Simmons is a prime example of a player who has great physical skills but lacks court savvy.

 

[Orange Maniac]

Now that Mitchell lost to an unranked team, who will this gang around here think we should get so we can fahr Holly? Yes, we let them come back with stupid plays by Burdick and Simmons but in crunch time the team got the job done. The refs gave UGA a little help along the way. One play Burdick was crashed into and knocked out of bounds and it was called out on us. It was an obvious foul. Graves gets pulled to the floor by 2 players on each arm and nothing was called. The refs were calling stupid hand checks and letting the inside players get smashed. Clueless. I do think one glaring weakness Holly has is not calling timeouts to settle the team down and kill the other teams momentum. I'm yelling timeout till I'm beet red. I was furious for a while but we settled down and I did to. Good win. Time to move to the next one.

 

[Sandvol]

Now that Mitchell lost to an unranked team, who will this gang around here think we should get so we can fahr Holly? Yes, we let them come back with stupid plays by Burdick and Simmons but in crunch time the team got the job done. The refs gave UGA a little help along the way. One play Burdick was crashed into and knocked out of bounds and it was called out on us. It was an obvious foul. Graves gets pulled to the floor by 2 players on each arm and nothing was called. The refs were calling stupid hand checks and letting the inside players get smashed. Clueless. I do think one glaring weakness Holly has is not calling timeouts to settle the team down and kill the other teams momentum. I'm yelling timeout till I'm beet red. I was furious for a while but we settled down and I did to. Good win. Time to move to the next one.

Nikki Caldwell would be the best person for the job but I don't ever see her agreeing to replace Holly a lifelong friend. Holly will be here for years. We will be a perennial top 10 team with Holly and maybe make it to an occasional final 4 but she'll never get us back to where Pat had us. Nikki could. The only way I see Nikki taking over is if Holly were to resign but don't see that happening unless Hart could quietly nudge her out but there really isn't incentive for him to do that. Women's basketball isn't that important anyway.

 

[Decker Moss]

What do you think our ranking will be when they come out? I'm predicting #8. Would have gone even farther back but Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma state, Colorado all lost.

 

[Slydell]

Strong defensive effort plus great game from Massengale and Harrison. The downside: 9 assists and 20 turnovers, not good. Simmons: 0 assists and 4 turnovers. Coaches have failed badly to develop her. She is a senior guard with skills and yet is a terrible passer. It's one reason why this team struggles more than it should. Jones is playing more because of her defense but she is not much help offensively. Maybe SHE will develop a bit of an offensive game. Need to learn to pass the ball into the low post. UT is not a good passing team and that ultimately will hurt this team against the top teams--that's what 9 assists vs. 20 turnovers indicates. Bad passing.

If this team could make one solid improvement in one area right now, I vote for no turnovers on passes. They worked on free throw shooting this past week and it showed tonight. Just hope this week has so many passing drills it makes the dizzy. Not just how to pass, but when to pass, as well.

 

[volmania8]

9 assists on 25 made field goals with 20 turnovers is not very good. It means there is little ball movement and too much one on one play. And yes, coaching can fix that. If a player doesn't want to play team ball then sit their butt on the bench. A coach has to be the coach and demand that the players do what they are supposed to

 

[volbeast33]

Nikki Caldwell would be the best person for the job but I don't ever see her agreeing to replace Holly a lifelong friend. Holly will be here for years. We will be a perennial top 10 team with Holly and maybe make it to an occasional final 4 but she'll never get us back to where Pat had us. Nikki could. The only way I see Nikki taking over is if Holly were to resign but don't see that happening unless Hart could quietly nudge her out but there really isn't incentive for him to do that. Women's basketball isn't that important anyway.

I like Nikki but she has never ever been to even an elite eight and counting this yr and last yrs recruiting classes Nikki Caldwell has 1 top 100 player while holly has 6.

 

[VolUpInCumming]

Bad passing doesn't necessarily equate to bad coaching. It is due to poor judgment and/or execution by the players when they are on the court.

I completely disagree. Passing is a skill that absolutely can be taught. Angle, force of throw, type of throw (ie; chest, baseball, bounce, etc.) and anticipation. My high school BB coach turned a really bad passing team into a pretty good passing team by making us do passing drills over and over every practice. He also made us run 5 times up and back down the football bleachers ( about 30 rows ) for every pass we threw in the previous game that resulted in a turnover. Even if it was raining. Or snowing, or ice , or tornado's or whatever the conditions. We all got to be pretty good at passing.
We were all still pretty short. Short is an example of something you can't teach. But you can teach good passing if its important to you.

 

[Voldemonium]

Nikki just beat Holly's Top100 players in Knoxville... I'm still on the fence regarding Holly but a serious argument could be made that Holly is the only UT assistant that didn't cut her teeth as a HC before being handed the keys to one of the top 2 or 3 jobs in the country.

Regarding our play, I've never seen a LV team turn the ball over the way this one does. How many lobbed dump passes did the wings throw over the head of our posts. Simmons had 2 or 3 of those by herself.

When you watch a team like Stanford or ND pass the ball around, only then can you appreciate how far we've dropped off. Holly will keep us in the top ten but in women's b-ball there's the top 3, then there's 4-12ish, then everybody else. We haven't been a top 3 team since Parker left and I still don't see a game changer on our roster. Great support players but I none I'd consider "elite" IMO.

 

[governmentmule]

in 5 years as a head coach, Caldwell has made a sweet 16 once,she has 10 wins 6 loses in SEC play while at LSU,which is good,but not the world beater everybody seems to think she is