By Stephen Mason
It was an absolute heartbreaker for the No. 22 Lady Volunteers and the thousands of fans who showed up to the Food City Center as they narrowly lost to the No. 4 Texas Longhorns 65-63. This is yet another loss to a top-five opponent as the team is still looking for its first top-10 win of the season.
Despite the result, Lady Vol nation showed up Sunday afternoon, and the environment was electric throughout the game.
“Our fans were phenomenal today. I think that was one of the best crowds we’ve played in front of, and we’ve played in front of some really cool crowds this year,” head coach Kim Caldwell said.
The environment may well have been the factor that kept Tennessee within striking distance of Texas, which is a large step forward from the blowout losses to No. 1 UConn and No. 3 South Carolina. Additionally, the team showed fight throughout all four quarters, showing they have responded to Caldwell’s criticisms after the loss to the Gamecocks.
“We played hard, we gave it all we had like Alyssa (Latham) said. We play for 40 minutes, and that is something we have to continue to do,” Talaysia Cooper said.
Cooper was a bright spot for the Lady Vols, leading the team with 29 points by going 12-19 from the floor and 4-7 from behind the arc. Most of these points came at critical times, like overcoming a 12-point deficit at the end of the second quarter and closing a 10-point gap at the end of the game.
However, in Caldwell’s system, it takes 10 players performing well to have success, and the Lady Vols continued to make errors at critical parts of the game. For example, on the final play of the game, when there was an opportunity to tie or win, Cooper dribbled the ball into two Texas defenders, causing a tie-up, while there were two open shooters for Tennessee on the perimeter. The Lady Vols also turned the ball over 22 times in the game.
One area of frustration for the team and fans was the officiating: Tennessee was called for 22 fouls, while Texas was called for only 12. This discrepancy put several Lady Vols in foul trouble at the end of the game, including Janiah Barker, who fouled out.
When asked about the tough officiating after the game, Caldwell had a quick response.
“Yeah, it was hard, it was hard,” Caldwell said.
While the team can take some solace in the fact that they pushed a top-five opponent to four quarters—something most programs would be happy with—the fact is that the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team is not just any team.
“In my opinion, Texas, Tennessee, and Stanford… those schools have been here since day one,” Texas head coach Vic Schaefer said. “When I take over Texas, and coach Caldwell takes over here, we’re here not to be good. Good will get you fired.”
Former Tennessee head coach Kellie Harper was good, leading her team to five postseason appearances and two Sweet 16 appearances.
She was fired.
Stepping back from today’s game and looking at Tennessee’s season holistically, it is fair to say this year’s team is good. For the most part, they have beaten the teams at or below their level; however, when they face top-10 opponents, the games have looked very ugly at times.
Caldwell has shown that her unique system can be successful at the highest levels of women’s college basketball, as her team took down the future national champion UConn last season. But this system requires buy-in from 10 players, something that was questioned last week in the historic loss to South Carolina. The Lady Vols answered the question about effort today with four solid quarters; however, Caldwell and her team need to take that next step and win one of these games soon.
The Lady Vols will have plenty of opportunities to get a marquee win. Tennessee will play three games next week, including against a top-15 Ole Miss team and a top-10 Oklahoma team. The Lady Vols will finish the season with games against No. 6 LSU and No. 5 Vanderbilt. While they may not be able to prove that they are a great team, they can certainly show that they can be one.
Today’s loss will only serve as fuel to the fire that will motivate Caldwell’s team to live up to the tradition of the Tennessee Lady Vols program.
“We need to be mad, we need to be mad about it. We don’t need to be sad, we don’t need to be pouty, we don’t need to listen to anything other than we’re mad. This is what we need to fix, and we need to take our anger out in our next game,” Caldwell said.Up Next — Tennessee will hit the road to play its rescheduled game at No. 14 Ole Miss on Tuesday at 7 p.m.