University of Tennessee Athletics
Massengale Pulls UT Through Adversity
February 15, 2015 | Women's Basketball
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
KNOXVILLE, Tenn.
-- Tennessee had played without Isabelle Harrison before this season, but never in a situation like the Lady Volunteers faced against Kentucky on Sunday afternoon.But facing perhaps the biggest shorthanded challenge in a season that has seen plenty of them, UT emerged with a win that showed a fight the team has been looking for all season.
With Jasmine Jones still sidelined after an injury earlier this season and Jordan Reynolds out after the game's first two minutes, Harrison went down less than a minute into the second half in a nasty tangle under the basket that left Thompson-Boling Arena in silence.
Tennessee players gathered around Harrison as she was carried from the court, supporting their emotional and physical leader.
It was an emotional scene, one that left fans wondering how the team would respond. Never mind watching your team leader go down in a heap, the game situation was another matter. The Lady Vols led the 10th-ranked team in the country by just two points with nearly an entire half to play. They would have to finish the game without two starters and only eight available players.
Then there was the case of Ariel Massengale. The senior entered Sunday's game just eight points shy of Tennessee's 1000-point club, but had scored just one point over the last three games. At the time of Harrison's injury, she had two points in the game on a pair of first-half free throws.
Faced with a situation that could have gone one of two ways, Massengale stepped up to help pull her team to a dominating second half to keep the Lady Volunteers perfect at home and in the SEC.
"I think that shows the impact Isabelle has on this team," head coach Holly Warlick said after the game. "When someone goes down, you want to fight for them, and I think that is what we did. People stepped up, and we were playing for Izzy. You can fold right then, but they didn't. That is a sign of a great team."
Though Massengale led the charge, she never felt like the performance was about her at all, rather about the team knowing what it had to do and executing it to perfection.
"We knew we had to join together as a team and become even tighter than we were at the beginning of the game," Massengale said. "We wanted to come out here and get that W for Izzy. She's been tremendous for us this season and her whole career here at Tennessee so we just wanted to have her back here tonight."
Kentucky took the lead, 38-37, with a Jennifer O'Neill free throw with 15:29 to play. Massengale nailed a three, her first in four games, to give UT the lead right back, a lead the team would not surrender the rest of the way.
After an Andraya Carter layup pushed the lead to three, Massengale hit again from 3-point range, giving her 1,000 points for career and delivering a symbolic blow to the Wildcats that this Lady Vol team was not going to crumble without Harrison.
"Her threes are like when guys dunk the basketball," Warlick said of Massengale. "It gave us energy on the defensive end. When she scored, I thought we made some great stops. What broke the game open was our transition after getting stops. I just thought that helped break the game open for us."
Massengale said the points mark and the scoring slump were far from her mind entering Sunday; she was just playing for the day.
"Every game is a new game, every day is a new day," she said. "I think as a basketball player, you just live to play another day and tonight we just had to go out there and not think about the past games but focus on today and focus on making shots and making plays."
Warlick was not surprised that her seniors stepped up when the team needed them most. Massengale finished with 17, fellow senior Cierra Burdick had 14.
"I told her before the game she would have a good game," Warlick said of Massengale. She started off and didn't hit, but let me tell you what Ariel did today; she was a tremendous leader for us. When your shot isn't falling, you can go in the tank, but she did not do that. She was a great leader and very vocal. She got the team where they needed to be."
Tennessee will move forward with Harrison's status unclear, a situation they have been in before. She missed a five-game stretch at the start of the season and has occasionally been limited with foul trouble. Combined with Jones' absence and Reynolds' status also uncertain, it is more adversity for UT to push through with Alabama on the schedule Thursday night.
"I think we have faced adversity before in the season, we took some blows and we continue to get up," Burdick said. "So we need to continue to get up together and come together as one and just play tough, play hard, play for our injured sisters and we will continue to work. Everybody goes through tough times during the season and you can let it break you or you can let it make you. So we just have to let it make us."
