Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell huddles against the Vanderbilt Commodores at Food City Center on Sunday in Knoxville.
Tennessee guard Talaysia Cooper (55) against the Vanderbilt Commodores at Food City Center on Sunday in Knoxville.
Sports Reporter
Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell huddles against the Vanderbilt Commodores at Food City Center on Sunday in Knoxville.
Tennessee guard Talaysia Cooper (55) against the Vanderbilt Commodores at Food City Center on Sunday in Knoxville.
KNOXVILLE — Lady Vols basketball followed the same script that’s led to its losing streak.
Tennessee played competitively for the first half against a ranked Vanderbilt team in its season finale on Sunday, then put together a poor third quarter and lost, 87-77. UT ended the regular season on a six-game losing streak and has dropped nine of its last 11 contests.
Third-quarter lapses were the a nail in Tennessee’s side during the recent skid. In its last nine losses, Tennessee was outscored, 227-129, in the third quarter.
“We’ve been addressing it,” Caldwell said. “We’ve tried to change up who goes back out on the floor to start the third quarter. We’ve addressed it, I don’t know, for a couple of games now, maybe longer. We just have to maybe trick them into thinking that we’re doing something different, other than we go in and we talk about a game plan. They talk about it first. They’ll write it on the board. We’ll talk about what we have to add as coaches. We’ll repeat it as a team, and then we come back out, and it always looks a little different than we want it to.”
The adjustments did not stick.
Tennessee was outscored, 553-498, in third quarters during the regular season as a whole — including some of its lopsided blowouts during the non-conference slate. Caldwell said the Lady Vols will watch the third quarter against Vanderbilt in full as she tries to find a solution to the letdowns.
So far, nothing has worked, and Caldwell didn’t have an answer for the adjustments not translating. When other teams have adjusted at halftime, Tennessee hasn’t found an answer.
“If I had that answer, we wouldn’t be having this problem,” Caldwell said. “We clearly don’t have it.”
Tennessee’s recent skid has seen its worst defensive play of the season.
Since beating Kentucky — a win that UT celebrated as a turning point — the Lady Vols have allowed 83 points per game and 49% shooting from the field. They held the Wildcats to 58 points and 38% from the field in that Jan. 22 SEC win.
Offensively, Tennessee is scoring 74.45 per game over the same stretch — a mark that would suggest a better record than 2-9 over the stretch.
“You focus on your next game. It’s go time,” Caldwell said. “March is when you want to be playing your best basketball. Regardless of what our record has been, I do think that we are showing some improvement in some areas. We need to continue to put it together. We need to continue to take those lapses away. Work on that. I think I have a team full of individuals that’ll be ready to go in March.”
The Lady Vols will return to the court in Greenville, South Carolina, in the SEC Tournament against the winner of Alabama and Missouri as a No. 6 seed — slotting them during the late night session on March 5.
A win in its first game would pit UT against Texas in the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament.
Tennessee is limping into the postseason after the worst month program history, but the SEC Tournament also brings the chance to bounce back.
“We need a win,” Caldwell said. “You need a win. You need a win in the SEC tournament, get some momentum, and take it game by game there.”
Sports Reporter
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