The No. 5 Tennessee Lady Volunteers celebrated their return to Thompson-Boling Arena for the 2022-23 season with a home court win against the University of Massachusetts.
Thursday night’s 74-65 win came as a much-needed break after suffering a season-opening loss to Ohio State earlier this week.
Tennessee’s success didn’t come without its fair share of cost, however.
Leading point scorer Jordan Horston made a swift exit early in the second quarter after suffering a knee injury that sent her writhing to the ground in pain.
She still managed to contribute five points and three rebounds to the evening, though the injury now leaves her questionable going forward.
In Horston’s absence, Rickea Jackson became the team’s top contributor, logging a strong 24 points and 11 rebounds during her 30 minutes of play. Jackson now leads the team in points and rebounds for the year thus far.
Meanwhile, Tamari Key contributed another 13 points and nine rebounds against UMass. Jasmine Powell led the team with seven assists during her 34 minutes on the court and Tess Darby added nine points in 19 minutes with her trio of three-pointers.
The Lady Vols were up by only five points come halftime, though they would eventually make this a 10-point lead entering the fourth quarter.
UMass then returned with one final burst of effort, putting up 12 unanswered points before the Lady Vols could respond.
In all, Tennessee was able to sink 41.9% of shots from the field, while UMass was only successful with 30.8% of those attempts.
When it came to offensive rebounds, though, the University of Massachusetts outperformed Tennessee by double. Whereas the Lady Vols logged 11 offensive rebounds, the Minutewomen stole the lead with 22.
Despite Massachusetts’ ultimate loss, head coach Tory Verdi spoke highly of the team’s accomplishments.
“For us to out-rebound a team that is second in the country in rebounding is pretty significant. Rebounding is effort. Rebounding’s a want-to; it’s a mindset. For what our players just did, I’m extremely proud of them.”
Tennessee’s first win of the season might have come against an unranked opponent, but it remains an especially significant win nonetheless.
Now that it has a victory under its belt, the Volunteers should have newfound confidence going into the next faceoff.
In the meantime, Tennessee center Tamari Key says the team plans to use this shortcoming as fuel for the future.
“They shot a lot of threes, which obviously called for long rebounds, so I think we just needed to pursue the ball more. We missed a couple of key box outs. That’s a stat that obviously stings for us. Nobody out-rebounds Tennessee usually, but it’s something that we’ll look forward to getting better at.”
The Lady Vols return to the court this coming Monday at 6:30 p.m. ET for a home matchup against No. 11 Indiana.
