Team looks to right ship after experiencing January mini-slump
The University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team enters the second week of February with an overall record of 19-4 and tied for fifth place in the Southeastern Conference standings at 5-3.
The season began with the team getting off to a 15-0 start with wins over ranked programs Marquette, Texas and Stanford. Everything was going in the right direction as the undefeated non-conference campaign transitioned into conference play, and three wins against Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Auburn continued that roll. But the unblemished start came to an end on the road on Jan. 11 when the Lady Vols fell to Texas A&M by three in overtime.
“We battled, but we made a lot of mistakes that beat ourselves,” Tennessee Head Coach Holly Warlick said of the game, which featured 10 ties and 17 lead changes.
The Lady Vols knew that the A&M contest would launch a tough four-game stretch in the middle of the season, with another road test at No. 8 South Carolina following the College Station trip. Another away challenge at No. 2 Notre Dame would follow before the gauntlet of games concluded with UT hosting Mississippi State.
The Lady Vols showed resolve following their first loss of the season, defeating the reigning national champions 89-70 in Columbia on Jan. 14. Against the Gamecocks, five Tennessee players, led by Jaime Nared with 21 points, scored in double figures. The team as a whole shot 56 percent from the floor.
Yet the winning ways lasted just one game, as the Lady Vols suffered another defeat in South Bend, collapsing down the stretch and ultimately losing 84-70 to Notre Dame on Jan. 18. The turnaround from that heartbreaking loss was quick; just three days later on Jan. 21, a tired UT team closed out the stretch against the national runners-up in Thompson-Boling Arena, where it was beaten 71-52 by the Bulldogs.
After that lopsided defeat and a rough stretch in which the Lady Vols had gone 1-3, Warlick made it a point to state that her team “needs to get in the gym and practice.”
“It was a tough stretch, and we understood that,” Warlick said. “We’ve been on the road. We had three tough road games, and then we come home, and our crowd was outstanding. We have to clean up some things. We have to value the basketball. That goes both ways – on offense, as far as the turnovers and the shot selection, and we have to really commit to defense. We started off really strong, and now we kind of took a dive. We played some tough teams. They are exposing us a little bit, and we have to go back and work on a lot of things.”
UT began the process of rebounding with its final two games of January. Warlick’s team responded well in the first matchup, defeating Ole Miss 75-66 at home, but it suffered its fourth loss in six games at LSU, losing 70-59.
Now, Tennessee faces eight remaining regular season games before the SEC Tournament commences in Nashville on Feb. 28. Of those eight, half are at home: Texas A&M, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina. The looming road contests are against Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Missouri and Florida.
