Westbrook Gone

[madtownvol]

The Lady Vols this past season, led by Evina Westbrook, were in a virtual tie with LSU for third most turnovers in the SEC.

Changing the subject is not a response. Yes, the LVs had a lot of TOs THIS season, as they have EVERY season under Holly but this season was actually lower than many past teams.

Can you process that statistical fact?

I will repeat. The LVs have had over 500 TOs every season under Holly except one when they still had a very high total of 429.

Let me restate it again for you...this season's high TO rate continues a trend that has been going on each and every season for the last seven years.

 

[TenUhSee]

You seem pretty obsessed with Evina and her turnovers. But did you know, this season's team had the second lowest number of TOs of any team under Holly's head coaching tenure (509).

The 2016-17 team had the lowest # of TOs (449). For Holly's other 5 seasons, her teams had over 550 TOs per year.

EW's TO were actually down from her freshman season 121 v. 101

In the two seasons prior, Diamond had a 103 and 116 TOs.

When Ariel Massengill was PG, her TOs were lower (generally around 60 per season) but the overall team # of team TOs remained high and its assist to TO ratio relatively low.
This seasons ratio was .9 for Massengill it was 1.0

So, high TOs and low assist to TO ratios seem to be a characteristic of the LVs for the last seven seasons.

Since Evina has only been there for two of these seasons, we may need to find another explanation. Who would be ultimately responsible for a team's consistently low level of poor offensive execution?

Think, think, think.......

 

[Franklin Pierce]

Changing the subject is not a response. Yes, the LVs had a lot of TOs THIS season, as they have EVERY season under Holly but this season was actually lower than many past teams.

Can you process that statistical fact?

I will repeat. The LVs have had over 500 TOs every season under Holly except one when they still had a very high total of 429.

Let me restate it again for you...this season's high TO rate continues a trend that has been going on each and every season for the last seven years.

I got the point that you and the other Westbrook apologists have been making for a long long time; Westbrook's team leading turnovers for two consecutive years are the fault of her coaches.

 

[Volfan2012]

I got the point that you and the other Westbrook apologists have been making for a long long time; Westbrook's team leading turnovers for two consecutive years are the fault of her coaches.

I would say it is about 50/50 fault as Holly has to take part of the blame for never correcting it and continuing to support her style of play. She should've been benched after the second or third bad pass in any game she played. You can't let the same player keep making the same mistake game after game. A lot of the turnovers were bad passes and many others were players inability to catch the ball. Holly would sometime get in a spell of must get the ball inside and players were making a lot of bad passes trying to do what she asked. Overall 169 assist and 101 turnovers which is a 1.7 to 1 which most consider great but I never want any player to commit 100 turnovers in a season.

 

[madtownvol]

I got the point that you and the other Westbrook apologists have been making for a long long time; Westbrook's team leading turnovers for two consecutive years are the fault of her coaches.

Cool. I just wanted to double check. Holly apologists sometimes single out a specific player, like Evina, or Diamond, or Simmons, or Ariel, or Cierra and hold them responsible for high TO rates but never question why the same problem of 500 turnovers a season keeps happening regardless of the players involved.

 

[dapeak]

YOU must know "what's going on behind the scenes" since you are vehemently defending their actions.

ORRRR I’m allowing parents to worry about their own children instead of acting as if I know each of them personally. If you feel attacked then maybe it’s you who’s in family business that doesn’t necessarily concern you. There was obviously a reason the Westbrook’s were unhappy with holly and UT and obviously it had nothings to do with playing time.

You and all of these posters attacking her and these other ladies are the problem with Tennessee. And idc about calling it out. It’s 2019, no one cares about how things were done in the 70s/80s where people just shut up and took crap.

 

[Volfan2012]

Cool. I just wanted to double check. Holly apologists sometimes single out a specific player, like Evina, or Diamond, or Simmons, or Ariel, or Cierra and hold them responsible for high TO rates but never question why the same problem of 500 turnovers a season keeps happening regardless of the players involved.

Well the Holly offense explains much of it she demanded them get the ball inside and most of them tried with really horrible results. How can you get a pass into a post player being double and triple teamed. I got so sick of the pass to the post that became the ball slapped away for a turnover. We ran that play way to many times game after game I can see it happening in my memory everytime someone mentions a turnover.

 

[Franklin Pierce]

ORRRR I’m allowing parents to worry about their own children instead of acting as if I know each of them personally. If you feel attacked then maybe it’s you who’s in family business that doesn’t necessarily concern you. There was obviously a reason the Westbrook’s were unhappy with holly and UT and obviously it had nothings to do with playing time.

You and all of these posters attacking her and these other ladies are the problem with Tennessee. And idc about calling it out. It’s 2019, no one cares about how things were done in the 70s/80s where people just shut up and took crap.

Westbrook and her mama both have swollen heads now. They are saying, 'look what we helped bring about'.

 

[madtownvol]

I would say it is about 50/50 fault as Holly has to take part of the blame for never correcting it and continuing to support her style of play. She should've been benched after the second or third bad pass in any game she played. You can't let the same player keep making the same mistake game after game. A lot of the turnovers were bad passes and many others were players inability to catch the ball. Holly would sometime get in a spell of must get the ball inside and players were making a lot of bad passes trying to do what she asked. Overall 169 assist and 101 turnovers which is a 1.7 to 1 which most consider great but I never want any player to commit 100 turnovers in a season.

I think it is the assist to TO ratio that is most crucial (and that stat has not been good for the LVs for a quite a while). But, if a team plays an up tempo style (thereby creating more total possessions), you would expect a higher number of overall TOs.

And not all TOs are the same. A turnover where the ball goes out of bounds (say on long fast break pass), allows the LVs to set their defense and sure it is a lost possession but they have a chance to win the ball back.

TOs that lead to transition buckets or happen when a team desperately needs a score are for more damaging. And the Lvs had too many of those as well.


A good number of Evina's turnovers came from trying to force passes into very tight windows or the target players just was not looking for a pass.

But Evina was not the only player to make those kind of errors.; Meme had too many passes like that as well. Davis had almost as many TOs as Evina; Jaz had a poor assist to To ratio as well (same a Evina's to be specific.

So again, all the evidence points to a problem in the system and the coaching. This team was poor in terms of its offensive execution.

 

[madtownvol]

Westbrook and her mama both have swollen heads now. They are saying, 'look what we helped bring about'.

 

[Franklin Pierce]

I think it is the assist to TO ratio that is most crucial (and that stat has not been good for the LVs for a quite a while). But, if a team plays an up tempo style (thereby creating more total possessions), you would expect a higher number of overall TOs.

And not all TOs are the same. A turnover where the ball goes out of bounds (say on long fast break pass), allows the LVs to set their defense and sure it is a lost possession but they have a chance to win the ball back.

TOs that lead to transition buckets or happen when a team desperately needs a score are for more damaging. And the Lvs had too many of those as well.


A good number of Evina's turnovers came from trying to force passes into very tight windows or the target players just was not looking for a pass.

But Evina was not the only player to make those kind of errors.; Meme had too many passes like that as well. Davis had almost as many TOs as Evina; Jaz had a poor assist to To ratio as well (same a Evina's to be specific.

So again, all the evidence points to a problem in the system and the coaching. This team was poor in terms of its offensive execution.

Westbrook was the only member of the team that publicly called for changes in the coaching staff.

Tennessee Lady Vols firing Holly Warlick was necessary after Evina Westbrook quotes

Tennessee Lady Vols firing Holly Warlick was necessary after Evina Westbrook quotes

 

[1reVOLver]

Westbrook and her mama both have swollen heads now. They are saying, 'look what we helped bring about'.

Hey! Lookee here That there is what's called a fact-free assertion. No evidence. Just a claim supported by thin air. Lacks the substance of the little plastic toys at the bottom of Cracker Jack boxes.

 

[lvocd]

Franklin Pierce, you need another hobby besides the Westbrooks. Your obsession has become really, really creepy and stalker-ish sounding.

 

[madtownvol]

Westbrook was the only member of the team that publicly called for changes in the coaching staff.


Tennessee Lady Vols firing Holly Warlick was necessary after Evina Westbrook quotes

It is a shame you did not read this editorial past the headline but I can help you out (no need to thank me).

Whichever side you’re on, you have to make it a reflection on her. If you think college players are out of line for bad-mouthing coaches, then you point the finger at Holly Warlick for facilitating a culture that allows the team leader to do that. However, again, if you want to give Warlick credit for allowing that culture, then you have to take what the players say seriously.

Either Holly Warlick had completely lost control of the program or the players had completely lost faith in her. Neither is a good sign, and it’s definitely not the program that Pat Summitt led. The players absolutely feared Summitt.

But the comments from Westbrook were the final straw. Warlick, who is a Vol for Life and a lifelong Lady Vols legend, has given a ton to the university. But her on-court results have underachieved. The program has regressed every year under her. So while the men’s program continues to reach new heights it never thought about, this was the right move for the women’s program.

And if you think recruiting rankings don’t mean anything, that still falls on her for misevaluating the talent herself. Either she misevaluated highly ranked recruits, or she failed to coach them up to their talent. I gave her the benefit of the doubt on both things while the program remained in transition, largely due to the concern that the Lady Vols may not get anybody else.

While I think Calhoun is attributing way too much influence to Evina's vague, "changes need to be made in the staff" statement, he is basically saying she was spot-on and did the program a favor by speaking out.

I can assure you that if the LVs had not had a historic six game losing streak and done more than barely make the tournament as a last four in bubble team and had managed to advance past the first round of the NCAA, Evina could have said "changes need to be made in the staff" and Holly would still be on the job and Evina would probably be gone.

But, Evina's comments were motivated by a downward spiraling season; And Holly was fired for being at the helm of that downward spiral which was the bottoming out (since she was released thankfully) of a four year downward trend.

You apparently can't see (or refuse to see) that decline. It seems that blaming Evina has some kind of therapeutic benefit for you.

I always hated it when someone took Holly's side on some given debate (which I have done on many occasions on this board) and was then accused of being "Holly." However, your obsessive anti-Evina posts and your fact-denying assertions that Holly deserved to stay on the job really make me wonder....

 

[VA_VOLFAN]

Westbrook and her mama both have swollen heads now. They are saying, 'look what we helped bring about'.

Where are they saying that

 

[Darth_Vol]

I got the point that you and the other Westbrook apologists have been making for a long long time; Westbrook's team leading turnovers for two consecutive years are the fault of her coaches.

You realize she had over twice as many assists as anyone else on the team without any semblance of an offense right? She plays the game at a different level than everyone else and with the right coaching she could be the best point guard to ever play here. The only way the Lady Vols have a chance to make a deep run in March next season is with her on the roster...

 

[madtownvol]

You realize she had over twice as many assists as anyone else on the team without any semblance of an offense right? She plays the game at a different level than everyone else and with the right coaching she could be the best point guard to ever play here. The only way the Lady Vols have a chance to make a deep run in March next season is with her on the roster...

Darth, on this matter we agree....Cheers to FP for bringing us together

 

[PRG]

You seem pretty obsessed with Evina and her turnovers. But did you know, this season's team had the second lowest number of TOs of any team under Holly's head coaching tenure (509).

The 2016-17 team had the lowest # of TOs (449). For Holly's other 5 seasons, her teams had over 550 TOs per year.

EW's TO were actually down from her freshman season 121 v. 101

In the two seasons prior, Diamond had a 103 and 116 TOs.

When Ariel Massengill was PG, her TOs were lower (generally around 60 per season) but the overall # of team TOs remained high and its assist to TO ratio relatively low.
This seasons ratio was .9 whereas for Massengill it was 1.0

So, high TOs and low assist to TO ratios seem to be a characteristic of the LVs for the last seven seasons.

Since Evina has only been there for two of these seasons, we may need to find another explanation. Who would be ultimately responsible for a team's consistently low level of poor offensive execution?

Think, think, think.......

If our players could make the 2 foot shots more consistently, then E’s assists would go up ! Just Saying

 

[Darth_Vol]

Darth, on this matter we agree....Cheers to FP for bringing us together

 

[PG1]

Westbrook and her mama both have swollen heads now. They are saying, 'look what we helped bring about'.

Agreed! Nothing good can come out of her staying! Can not take a chance on her attitude having any bad consequences to next years team! See Ya!

 

[dusbelli]

Agreed! Nothing good can come out of her staying! Can not take a chance on her attitude having any bad consequences to next years team! See Ya!

 

[blackv]

fulmer went cheap! you get what you pay for. five more years of the same!!! Holly warlick in disguise?

 

[Tennesseefan2019]

fulmer went cheap! you get what you pay for. five more years of the same!!! Holly warlick in disguise?

Coach Harper will surprise the doubters

 

[Vol4Real]

Coach Harper will surprise the doubters

I think she will. I was on the border with her initially but now I really think she can turn the program around.

 

[teacherdean]

Her size, her court vision, and her instincts are above any LV point guard at this stage of her career. Unfortunately she often tries to do too much, and received absolutely no help or development from her coaches...[/QUOTE
I agree, the biggest problem Westbrook has is, trying to win games on her own. You could see the disappointment in her face when she threw a pass to a teammate and they made little effort to catch the ball. I think we are spending a lot of time throwing Westbrook under the bus when her teammates have to take some of the blame. Under Holly, the team had become a hot mess. There was zero leadership and it appears that Holly had lost the team. I would like for Westbrook to stay and if KJH can get this team to play like a team and to play with effort and emotion. I want them to play like the Lady Vol brand means something to them and to leave "IT" on the floor in every game. I want Ladies who play like they respect the rich history of the Lady Vol basketball program.