University of Tennessee Athletics
Tennessee-Notre Dame Behind The Scenes
January 22, 2016 | Women's Basketball
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
Photos by Donald Page, Tennessee Athletics
There is a lot that goes into taking a college basketball team on the road, the game that fans see is just the end result of a much longer story. It is a journey that the Tennessee Lady Volunteers have made or will make a total of 13 times from the beginning of the season in November through the Southeastern Conference tournament in March.
For the Lady Vols' trip to Notre Dame, UTSports.com was along every step of the way to give you a look inside the program. From the charter flight to Indiana to the locker room before tip-off, we take you behind the scenes of Lady Vol basketball.
Sunday
4:01 p.m.
The preparation for Tennessee's trip to face Notre Dame began a little earlier than usual. After a loss at Arkansas on Thursday night, head coach Holly Warlick called her team back in the gym for a 7 a.m. workout on Friday morning.
"It was an opportunity to get better, not a punishment" associate head coach Kyra Elzy said. "We knew that we had underachieved and did not go to Arkansas and do what we were supposed to do."
The game plan to face the Fighting Irish was fine-tuned in a Sunday practice session before heading to South Bend. A quick turnaround from practice to travel mode is nothing new for the Lady Vols and the staff, but how efficiently it is executed is a study in planning and preparation. An hour after the last ball goes on the rack, the bus is en route to the airport.
4:37 p.m.
There is a list for everything on team trips, but the detail that director of operations Michael Beaumont goes into may be unmatched. Everything is planned, from meals to snacks, down to the attire each member of the travel party will wear for each stop along the way, what members of the travel party eat at the various team meals and even a seating chart for the bus and airplane.
Manager Brian Johnson loads the bus outside Thompson-Boling Arena before the team departs for the airport.
The plan makes it easy on the team, because everything is consistent from trip to trip. It also makes it very easy for those of us that only travel on certain road trips.
The itinerary for this trip has one other detail on it that is new: the temperature. When the Lady Vols went to South Bend a season ago, locals commented on how nice the weather was, comments that drew odd looks from the UT party considering temperatures were in the 30s. This time around, everyone saw what they meant. UT would be in Indiana for less than 36 hours and at no time would the temperature reach double digits.
5:07 p.m. It took the charter bus longer to drive from the entrance of TACAir out to the tarmac than it did for Tennessee's managers to transfer the team luggage and equipment from the bus to the conveyor belt at the rear of the plane. Another model of efficiency.
Inside the charter plane, associate director of sports medicine Ashley Wilson fulfills her second-most important duty, providing post-practice refueling via a snack for the ride to South Bend. It takes a village to feed a Division I team, no matter the sport. The squad also has dinner scheduled upon arrival at the team hotel.
5:30 p.m.
Wheels up for the scheduled hour and a half in the air.
A view of the Notre Dame campus from the air as the team charter approaches the airport in South Bend.
The journey takes a little longer than scheduled. The plane circles the South Bend area for nearly a half-hour due to a heavy band of snow showers, and a decision has to be made whether the plane will need to divert to another airport.
The runway is ready, having been plowed and treated after lake effect snow showers coated the area during the day and early-evening hours. Then, the weather cooperates, and the all-clear signal is given to go ahead and land in South Bend. The Lady Vol plane taxis and comes to a halt on the tarmac, and the transfer to the awaiting team bus begins.
7:13 p.m.
There has been one casualty on the flight: Jaime Nared's cell phone, which has mysteriously disappeared during the flight. Nared, radio play-by-play announcer Mickey Dearstone and manager Brian Johnson search for the missing device between seats and on the floor of the aircraft. After five minutes, the patience for a search has been exhausted and it ends without a phone.
Halfway through the 10-minute bus ride from the airport to Tennessee's hotel, a cheer erupts from the back of the bus, where Nared's phone has been found. The location: the bottom of the front pocket of her backpack.
7:35 p.m.
The Lady Vols make the snowy walk into the team hotel in South Bend.
Having navigated the snowy roads safely, the team arrives at its residence for the night.
Upon checking in, the team went to dinner in one of the hotel's meeting rooms while the staff went to work. Beaumont communicated with the hotel staff to make sure every detail was in place for the next 24 hours. Video coordinator Josh Boucher set up the meeting room where the team would have its film sessions. Wilson put together the athletic training room where the players will get treatment and be taped up for shoot-around and game time on Monday.
10:30 p.m.
With cell phones collected for the night, it's lights out for the players. Gameday against the Irish is just a 9:00 a.m. wake-up call away.
On the road with @LadyVol_Hoops in SouthBend. Its been quite a day! pic.twitter.com/BjfiyBfTSE
-- Vol Photos (@Vol_Photos) January 18, 2016
Monday
10:54 a.m.
After breakfast, the team makes the 10-minute journey from the hotel to the Purcell Pavilion, the basketball arena located inside the multi-facility Joyce Center on the Notre Dame Campus. The players are able to avoid the single-digit temperatures as the bus pulls inside the loading dock.
Tennessee is playing the Irish at home for the second-straight year, an oddity for a non-conference series. The change was made three years ago to help the Lady Vols balance their schedule with a marquis home game. Rather than take a year off from a series that is important to both programs, Notre Dame agreed to consecutive trips to Knoxville in the 2013 and 2014, leaving Tennessee to come to South Bend in 2015 and 2016.
A very cold and windy walk to the bus this morning. Headed to shoot-around. pic.twitter.com/HLHmUTPulQ
-- Lady Vol Basketball (@LadyVol_Hoops) January 18, 2016
11:01 a.m.
Stretching begins for the Lady Vols' shoot-around inside Purcell Pavilion. The soundtrack for warmups comes courtesy of Johnson's old-school playlist on his phone with a Bluetooth speaker sending the classic sounds of "Hyptonize" from Notorious B.I.G. and a couple of Snoop Dogg selections.
The final game plan is reviewed extensively over the session, with ESPN's top broadcast crew of Dave O'Brien and Doris Burke watching on. The game is part of ESPN's "Big Monday" series, where the crew of O'Brien and Burke that will call the Final Four in April highlights the biggest game in women's basketball each Monday night. This is the fifth-consecutive year that the January meeting between Tennessee and Notre Dame has been featured on "Big Monday."
12:31 p.m.
Shoot-around concludes with another Tennessee tradition, the players line up to take half-court shots, shooting until someone makes one. It's a shorter process than you would think.
On this Monday, it very nearly ended on the second shot taken. Jordan Reynolds rattles the rim, but sees her shot just bounce out. The other players take their turns, before Jasmine Jones, who is still working her way back from an injury casually throws one up from the right side of the court. Though far from a direct look and longer than the shots taken by her teammates, Jones swishes it, nothing but net. With her injury, the team passes on the usual tradition of tossing basketballs at the winning teammate, but the celebration is on.
1:07 p.m.
Upon return to the hotel, a snack spread with peanut butter and jelly sandwich halves, yogurt-covered raisins, fruit-and-nut energy bars and fresh fruit selections awaits the team.
Snack time is everyone's favorite time. pic.twitter.com/aXdVsql4n7
-- Brian Rice (@briancrice) January 18, 2016
2:55 p.m.
After a film session, the players file into the hotel ballroom for the pregame meal to find a surprise laid out for them. The team will debut the new Smokey Grey Nike uniforms that were unveiled back in July. It will mark the first time in program history that the team has worn grey and one of a very limited number of times the Lady Vols have worn a color other than orange and white since Joan Cronan's team in the 1970s originally wore light blue because orange uniforms weren't available in women's sizes. Since then, the only other color worn has been pink for the annual "Live Pink, Bleed Orange" game in support of breast cancer awareness.
Uniform talk aside, the team takes down a spread that includes fresh fruit, grilled chicken, shrimp, pasta and rice.
5:15 p.m.
Downtown South Bend traffic is no problem as the bus pulls out en route for the meeting with the Irish. The Smokey Grey uniforms are hidden safely behind the usual orange warm-up pants and special "Walk the Walk" t-shirts in honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The game is a part of Notre Dame's Walk the Walk Week, a series of events on campus to celebrate Dr. King's values and legacy.
6:51 p.m.
Warlick channels former Tennessee football coach Johnny Majors in her pregame speech to the team, imploring them to attack on all fronts. The word "attack" is spoken 12 times in her address, setting the tone for the mission for the night.
She also emphasizes second-chance points, a stat that will require Tennessee to attack the boards against a team with a height advantage in the lane.
Warlick closes by telling the Lady Vols about the opportunity they have and the support that stands behind them.
"It's about what you believe in," she said. "We have to believe in what we do. Look around this room. Do we have to rely on any one person to do everything? It's about this team, it's about belief in what we can do. I believe in you all. You have to believe in you. Everything you do tonight, we're on a mission. We believe in championships and you win by playing together. Attack and take care of business."
GAME TIME! #BeatND #GoLadyVols @LadyVol_Hoops pic.twitter.com/yFzutn8Uxd
-- Vol Photos (@Vol_Photos) January 19, 2016
7:01 p.m.
Tennessee controls the opening tip and strikes first on a Bashaara Graves jumper in the lane. The game plan is to take the ball inside with Graves and Mercedes Russell, something that has been a key factor in the Lady Vols' victories and a notable absence in setbacks.
Notre Dame deploys a zone defense to counter the attempt to emphasize the inside game. UT is able to beat the zone early and knock down a few shots to open it up. A 9-0 UT run to close the first quarter has the Lady Vols up 18-15 after a period.
The second quarter initially starts out well for Tennessee as well, matching ND's intensity on both ends. But a 15-4 run over the final five minutes of the half gives the Irish the halftime edge, 36-29.
The third quarter opens without Diamond DeShields on the floor or on the bench. The redshirt sophomore felt a twinge in her shoulder at the end of the first half and pain in the spot when she went back out to shoot during halftime. A tape job alleviates the pain, and she returns to action but misses much of the third quarter. The Lady Vols miss her presence, scoring just 10 points in the third and trail 57-39 heading to the final quarter.
Tennessee never quits, fighting back in the fourth, despite the deficit. UT will outscore ND, 27-21, in the final period, falling 79-66.
The bright spot of the night was Graves, who finished with 13 points, five of them coming down the stretch to score in double digits for the third time in four career games against the Irish. The senior averaged 14.5 points and 8.8 rebounds vs. Notre Dame in four games during her career.
Her 10 rebounds led UT and gave her a second double-double against ND after going for 19 points and 13 rebounds as a freshman in 2013. A year ago, she scored 22 points against Notre Dame with eight rebounds.
The emphasis on rebounding and second-chance points? It paid off. Tennessee dominated second-chance points, 19-7. The Lady Vols outrebounded the Irish, 36-32. The attack mentality came through as well. UT forced 18 Notre Dame turnovers, nine of them coming on steals.
9:18 p.m.
In the postgame press conference, which takes place in the ND film room, the disappointment is evident on the faces of Warlick and the two players selected to join her, Graves and DeShields. But the message from all three is clear: Though this is a disappointing loss, the fight Tennessee showed down the stretch can be a point to build on as SEC play fires back up. The mistakes made are correctable.
"Well it's definitely too many turnovers, but the positive we take away from it is that's something we can control," DeShields said. "Once we stop turning the ball over and once we start playing defense, we had a 25-plus point fourth quarter, and that was because we took care of the ball and we played defense. So just going into the rest of the conference and knowing that we are capable, and we are a very resilient team. This has been a very up-and-down season for us, and we know that, but we are going to get through this. We are sticking together and this is making us stronger. And like I said, we are going to head back to Knoxville and get ready for Vanderbilt."
10:49 p.m.
Another snowy night on the tarmac before heading home to Knoxville.
It is wheels up on the charter flight back to Knoxville. Boucher, the video coordinator may have the most pressure-packed postgame, he has to have the game video broken down and on the coaches' laptops by the time the plane takes off. He's ahead of the curve and has the laptops distributed to the staff before they leave the bus for the plane.
An hour later, the Lady Vols are on the ground in Knoxville with no time to look back. The Vanderbilt Commodores are coming to town in three nights, a team that has never beaten Tennessee at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Postscript
The lessons from the game at Notre Dame may have stuck with the Lady Vols, but the result did not. Tennessee never trailed in a 58-49 victory over the Commodores.
The turnover numbers that cost UT a win in South Bend were reduced to just 15 against VU, while forcing 23 Commodore miscues.
"I think it's just an eye-opener for us," DeShields said after the Vanderbilt game. "We matched their intensity throughout the entire game. When they went on their runs, we went on ours and in the past it hasn't been that way. The other teams that we've lost to or even beaten; when they go on their runs we kind of deflate. Tonight I really believed that we had that fight in us to keep going and we were determined to win the game."
Tennessee heads back on the road from here with games at #9/9 Kentucky on Monday and at #10/10 Mississippi State Thursday.
