University of Tennessee Athletics
Lady Vols Confident As Season Approaches
October 27, 2015 | Women's Basketball
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
KNOXVILLE -- Holly Warlick has what she calls her most talented team in her four seasons at Tennessee, a prospect that has the team confident and its fans excited for the start of the 2015-16 season.
After all, this is a program that has three Southeastern Conference titles, 2013 and 2015 regular season and 2014 tournament, in Warlick's first three seasons as head coach. The Lady Volunteers have reached the Elite Eight in two of those three campaigns.
That this team has the potential to be better, adding transfer guard Diamond DeShields, a top-rated recruit out of high school and 2014 National Freshman of the Year at North Carolina and getting back the services of center Mercedes Russell after a redshirt year last season, was the talk of the program's annual media day Tuesday at Pratt Pavilion.
The Lady Vols also have highly-rated freshmen guards Te'a Cooper and Meme Jackson in the mix to boost an already-strong backcourt.
Warlick, who ranks No. 5 among active NCAA Division I women's basketball coaches with an 81 percent winning percentage, will use the boost in guard play to return the team to the up-tempo style that was the hallmark of some of Tennessee's best teams in the past. It is a classic identity with a new-school touch.
"Our rebounding, up-tempo, and getting better on the defensive end -- have really been our focus in what we want to be identified as. When I look back, that's what I think Tennessee teams in the past have been. That has not changed, and that will continue to be that way here with the Lady Vols."
Jackson watched those teams play growing up and always dreamed of being a Lady Vol. Now, she will be one of the players called upon to build on the storied tradition that echoes in the halls of Thompson-Boling Arena.
"It's a great feeling to be a part of a tradition," Jackson said. "Knowing that this has always been my dream school, the best place to play in the country, I feel like I have accomplished something. Playing for Tennessee has always been my goal."
Sophomore guard Alexa Middleton played in all 36 games as a freshman a season ago and knows the feeling that Jackson will have taking the floor for the school she always dreamed of attending. It was Middleton's dream as well, and helping that dream school to a championship has her even hungrier for year two.
"Growing up Tennessee was the program and it still is in my eyes," Middleton said. "Everyone here has the same expectation to do as well as they have in the past. Our mindset for this year has been different; all the pieces are coming together."
Jordan Reynolds came to Tennessee, all the way from Portland, Oregon, in part because of the tradition. The expectations are part of what motivates the junior guard every day, not just to win SEC titles and advance in the NCAA Tournament, but to build on the lofty accomplishments for the last three seasons and return to the standard that is reflected on the Final Four banners that hang above The Summitt floor.
"We haven't won the championships; we're looking to go further and add to the tradition that everyone talks about," Reynolds said. "We are humbling ourselves because this is a new era with new faces and a lot of hunger."
They look to the season at an SEC and national landscape far different from days of old. South Carolina reached the Final Four a year ago for the first time, another piece in the changing of the guard that has seen some of the top programs from years past be replaced by new names in the polls. But Tennessee remains a constant.
Since the NCAA Tournament began in 1982, only 25 teams have ever appeared in a national championship game. Not only have many of the old guard fallen from contention for a championship, just 14 of those teams even qualified for the tournament last season.
This edition of the Lady Volunteers aims not only to keep the program in the national conversation, but the squad expects to remind everyone that Tennessee is still Tennessee.
"We hold ourselves to a high standard," Reynolds said. "Good teams hold themselves to that higher standard and we're doing that. We're never satisfied."
Their confidence builds as every day goes by, as the first test of the season approaches.
"I would go to war with my teammates against anyone, any day," Middleton said. "We have great players here; now it's a matter of getting the job done."
