University of Tennessee Athletics
Lady Vols Grind To Advance To Championship
March 08, 2015 | Women's Basketball
March 8, 2015
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.
--The opening round of the SEC Tournament for Tennessee was all about making a statement. Saturday's semifinal was about doing what was necessary to advance.When the final horn sounded, the Lady Volunteers had done exactly enough to earn a 23rd appearance in the championship game with a 75-64 victory over Kentucky.
"This group, I keep saying they play so well together, we don't have to rely on one person," head coach Holly Warlick said. "They're truly a team. They're fun to be around. When you win like this, we heard a lot about beating a team three times, we talked a lot about that. It's about playing in the moment.
"I think this is what this group does, they play in the moment. We know the two games that we played earlier, we could have gotten better. We just did some really good things as a team."
The third game against the Wildcats resembled the first two meetings in some ways, but was radically different in others. The physical battles that left bodies flying across the court continued, but with the grind of back-to-back games apparent on both sides, there was not the typically run-and-gun battle that fans have come to expect from the two teams.
It started slowly, with UT going without a field goal for over seven minutes to start the game. But unlike previous games, the Tennessee defense held strong, preventing Kentucky from making a run that made a comeback impossible.
"This group has had to learn your offense should not affect your defense," Warlick said. The beginning of the season, if Cierra [Burdick] or Jordan [Reynolds] would have missed two or three shots, we got our head down, we're in trouble. But I think they understand that now defense can come back and get them easy buckets. I thought we were getting good looks, they just weren't going down early."
Without Isabelle Harrison in the Tennessee lineup, Kentucky took a different approach form the first two meetings and keyed on Bashaara Graves in the paint. Graves used it to her advantage, though being limited to six points, she pulled down nine rebounds dished out a career-high five assists.
The focus down low opened up Reynolds to score 13 points and tie a career best with three 3-pointers. Andraya Carter added 12, including a pair of clutch scores from long range.
"Our coaches really harp on playing inside out," Reynolds said. "So when we get the ball inside, you know, people tend to triple, quadruple team Bashaara and Cierra. When we play inside out it allows us to get open shots as we did today, and we knocked them down."
Burdick responded to the challenge as well. After scoring just six points against Georgia on Friday, she led UT with 20 points and grabbed a team-best 11 rebounds for her seventh double-double this season.
"Yesterday I didn't shoot the ball well," Burdick said. "I knew I needed to have a bounce back game today. I think in previous years and games, if I didn't have a good shooting night, you know, a previous game, I would let that affect my next game. My teammates and coaches have done a great job of keeping me confident, telling me to continue to shoot the ball."
Now, they are one game away from adding another trophy to the collecting. A game that will be a rematch with the team that the Lady Vols shared the SEC regular season title with, the South Carolina Gamecocks. The same USC team that handed UT its only SEC defeat, 71-66, on Feb. 23.
"It's up to these young ladies to fight and scrap and claw," Warlick said. "That's what they're doing. They're competing. That's all we ask them to do, just compete, play every possession like it's your last possession."
