University of Tennessee Athletics
@LadyVol_Hoops Report (2/3/16)
February 03, 2016 | Women's Basketball
KNOXVILLE -- The #23/25 Lady Vols (13-8/4-4 SEC) play their second consecutive home game Thursday night, as Arkansas (9-13/4-5 SEC) comes to town for a 7 p.m. contest at Thompson-Boling Arena.
The 3-Point Play promotion will be available. With the purchase of every 3-Point Play ticket, fans receive a voucher for one personal size Papa John’s pizza and a photo with Smokey.
The game will be streamed live on SECN+ and available via the WatchESPN app. Bob Kesling (play-by-play), Brittany Jackson (analyst) and Maddy Glab (reporter) will describe the action. Mickey Dearstone, meanwhile, will handle the call for the IMG College/Lady Vol Network radio/online broadcast.
The Lady Vols and Razorbacks will meet for the 30th time in the series, with UT owning a 26-3 advantage. Arkansas, however, has the edge this season after Jimmy Dykes’ squad came from 11-down to upend the Big Orange in Fayetteville, 64-59, on Jan. 14.
Head coach Holly Warlick, junior guard Jordan Reynolds and sophomore Jaime Nared met with the media on Thursday before practice to discuss the key Southeastern Conference match-up. With a log jam in the league standings, Tennessee has a chance to continue moving up the ladder if the Lady Vols can hold serve on their home court.
Warlick also has an opportunity to join an elite club of coaches if her troops can even the season series with UA.
Warlick On the Verge of 100 Victories
Holly Warlick enters Thursday night’s contest with a 99-28 record (.780) and stands one win away from becoming the 17th person to lead her squad to 100 wins in her first four seasons as head coach of an NCAA Division I women’s basketball team.
Warlick would become only the sixth coach since 1992 to do so. She also would join Kristy Curry (Purdue, 1999-2003/now at Alabama) as the only Power Five coaches in the past 24 years to win 100 games in their first four years.
The previous 16 coaches to reach 100 wins in their first four years of directing NCAA Division programs are Sonja Hogg, La. Tech (125), Jody Conradt, Texas (125), Matt Bollant, Wis.-Green Bay (117), Leon Barmore, La. Tech (117), Karl Smesko, Florida Gulf Coast (113), Gary Blair, Stephen F. Austin (112), Kristy Curry, Purdue (107), Andy Landers, Georgia (107), Van Chancellor, Ole Miss (106), Marianne Stanley, Old Dominion (106), Tom Collen, Colorado State (105), Linda Sharp, USC (104), Paul Sanderford, Western Kentucky (103), Joan Bonvicini, Long Beach State (101), Rick Insell, Middle Tennessee (100), Bill Fennelly Iowa State (100).
Warlick’s numbers are even more impressive when one considers the Tennessee job was her very first head coaching experience. Many of the coaches on the “100 list” coached their college teams under the auspices of AIAW prior to the NCAA adding women's sports under its umbrella, meaning many of these coaches already had experience as a full-fledged head coaches when they posted these numbers. Some of these coaches directed high school programs or college programs below the Division I level before achieving these results.
Pat Summitt ranks 37th with 92 wins in the first four years UT competed at the NCAA level instead of AIAW. Summitt was 55-28 in her actual first four years as UT’s coach and had seven years under her belt before the Lady Vols began competition under the NCAA’s direction.
A selection of other coaches and their records in their first four years at NCAA DI: Kim Mulkey (98), Jeff Walz (96), Nikki Caldwell (95), Kay Yow (94), Tara VanDerveer (93), Joe Ciampi (92), C. Vivian Stringer (92), Karen Aston (86), Joanne P. McCallie (80), Gail Goestenkors (76), Dawn Staley (74), Muffet McGraw (71).
Progress Since The Game In Fayetteville
Tennessee saw an 11-point halftime lead evaporate on Jan. 14 in Fayetteville, and Arkansas turned Lady Vol turnovers into an 11-point advantage of its own en route to a 64-59 victory. That Razorback win snapped an 11-game UT win streak at Bud Walton Arena and forced the Lady Vols to do some soul-searching and seek ways to improve upon their weaknesses.
“We’ve had a lot of tough losses, but that one, I think, was a big one because we thought we got outworked,” Jordan Reynolds said. “We had the lead at one point and just gave it up. At times, we just weren’t cutting hard or running hard or just playing hard overall. I think it ranks in our top three biggest losses.
It appears to have been a turning point game for the Big Orange.
“I look back at the Fayetteville game, and we got a big lead and kind of just exhaled and thought the game was over,” Warick said. “It wasn’t, obviously. We were turning the ball over about three or four times in a row, and then they were capitalizing on it. We were very casual.
“I think now we’ve found a sense of urgency. We’re practicing a lot harder. We’re playing a lot better together. That game really got our attention. I think now we won’t be looking past Arkansas tomorrow.”
Tennessee also has an eye on making sure the team is cognizant of maintaining focus throughout the course of a game and continuing to play with great energy.
“We talk about that a lot at halftime,” Warlick said. “We talk about getting refocused. We don’t keep them in there long, because I guess I’ve learned this team needs to come back out and get a little bit more aggressive in the warm-up.
“We talk a lot about trying to win every quarter. It’s really important for this group. They identify with that. Sometimes kids identify with certain things. They identify with winning quarters, and when we don’t win a quarter, they’re not very happy. This team has really gotten focused on that aspect of the game, which has been a positive thing for us.”
The Effort Is Here to Stay
One struggle for the Lady Vols for a portion of this season has been the inability to maintain consistent effort for all four quarters. There has been a point of emphasis from both the coaches and players to address that issue.
There have been some signs of progress on that front, however, as the Lady Vols have recorded at least 41 rebounds in each of the past three games including a season best +21 rebounding margin in the win over Alabama despite missing Bashaara Graves due to injury.
Jaime Nared was one of the players who stepped up, recording her first career double-double with 17 points while tying a career high with 10 rebounds.
“I think rebounding is important,” Nared said. “Especially when you have someone like Bashaara out for the game. We all had to step up as far as rebounding. Mercedes…I think she had 13 rebounds. It just came from everyone, it was not only me. A lot of people were getting more rebounds than they normally do to pick up for Bashaara, because Bashaara is a rebounding beast.”
Jordan Reynolds has been another player stepping into a more prominent role. The junior is averaging 5.7 rebounds per game over the past six games, including a career-high 11 boards against Mississippi State.
“I think we are in a better place now,” Reynolds said. “Back when we played Arkansas it was the beginning of the SEC and our effort was so up and down after our loss to Florida. I think right now we have a consistent effort towards working hard. I thought we played really hard against Mississippi State although we took a loss. We played really hard against Kentucky even though we took a loss. We played really hard against Alabama and we got a win. I think our effort is there now on a consistent basis.”
Zone Beater
The Lady Vols have seen a lot of zone defense this season. Therefore, the team has been putting in extra reps as they look to improve their offense.
“I think we are getting better at it because we work on it a ton in practice,” Reynolds said. “Also in our shootarounds we work on zone; shooting off ball-screens in zone, rotating the ball, playing inside-out and then kicking out to the guards in the zone. We’ve been doing a lot of work because we have faced it a lot and I think we’ve gotten a lot better at it thus far.”
“Every team is different,” Nared said. “Every team plays their zone differently, some people play it more out, some people play it more compact because we have such talented posts. I think that’s a credit to (Mercedes Russell and Bashaara Graves) that they want to stay compact on them. Teams want to make our guards do more, like penetrate and hit shots. We are going to keep getting better, we work on it all the time in practice. We’re going to keep getting better at it.”
“In the beginning of the year we weren’t cutting hard or even attacking the zone,” Reynolds said. “I think now we are doing a much better job of that; attacking the zone, getting into gaps, shooting our confident shots. It’s been a lot different then it started with.” The Lady Vols have done a lot better over the past couple games. They racked up 22 assists against Alabama, their most against a SEC opponent this season.
Tennessee has also been shooting 41.5 percent over the past three games including at least a 37.5 percentage in each of the past three games.
The team has attributed that to “just getting extra reps up,” Nared said. “Anybody has gone through times where they just can’t make a shot. I don’t think you beat yourself up, you just keep putting in more reps and keep working on your shot and it will come back.”
