NASHVILLE - A little more energy and few more personal contributions worked wonders for Tennessee on Sunday afternoon.
The result was an 81-68 SEC women's basketball victory over Vanderbilt with a lot of Lady Vols' fingerprints on it. For that reason, UT's 15th consecutive victory against its instate rival was bigger than usual.
"It's a huge win for us,'' UT coach Pat Summitt said. "I had no idea what we'd do for 40 minutes.
Unlike recent games, the Lady Vols made the most of their time on the court. They never trailed, maintaining their grip on a lead that reached double figures in both halves. There were a few wobbles, primarily the result of foul trouble and turnovers, but no meltdowns.
The Lady Vols (23-2, 9-1 SEC) didn't throttle down until the final three minutes. By then, they had built their lead to as much as 20 points and satisfied their fans in the announced crowd of 14,316 at Memorial Gymnasium.
"I'm going to have to give them the credit,'' Summitt said. "They spent time figuring out how they can get better. We did a lot of good things today."
Candace Parker did her usual, scoring a game-high 23 points for UT. Fellow starter Angie Bjorklund added 15.
Reserve forward Alex Fuller provided a fresh wrinkle with 14 points, her SEC season high. She shot 6-for-8 from the floor and also had three rebounds and two assists.
The Lady Vols topped 50-percent shooting from the floor for the first time in seven games, hitting at a 51.8-percent clip (29-for-56). They were 8-for-16 on 3 pointers. The accuracy covered for 19 turnovers.
UT also made an unusual devotion to zone defense pay off. Vanderbilt (19-7, 8-3) committed 24 turnovers, which played a part in sabotaging a rally to within one point with 13:58 left.
"We're a pretty good team,'' Vanderbilt coach Melanie Balcomb said. "Tennessee made us look bad."
Tennessee was a better team for having a team meeting on Friday afternoon, the day after Thursday night's 78-62 loss to LSU. The players-only portion yielded a better sense of direction.
"It was kind of like a now-or-never meeting,'' Parker said. "We can't wait like we did last season and expect to win a national championship. We have to stop talking about it and start being about it."
Summitt conceded that at times like that the sound of teammates resonates like no other.
"Sometime the voice of player-to-player is so much more electrifying to what happens," she said.
Fuller took the theme home with her and spent more time relating it to herself.
"I took it to heart because I'm an upperclassman and a leader on this team,'' Fuller said. "If she's (Summitt) not getting from me what she wants, and I have Vicki (Baugh) and Angie and Sid (Smallbone) and Kelley (Cain) looking at me and wondering why I'm not doing my job."
On this day, Alberta Auguste and Baugh followed Fuller's lead, contributing useful minutes. Parker and starting center Nicky Anosike both sat out large chunks of the first half with foul trouble. And UT still managed with as many as three reserves playing at once.
The foul trouble was part of Summitt's explanation for playing so much zone defense. Another reason amounted to a nod of respect to Vanderbilt's halfcourt offense.
"Vanderbilt runs so many great offensive sets,'' she said. "They're hard to defend."
Balcomb said that the Commodores normally play well against a zone. This performance was a sloppy exception.
"We were throwing the ball away for no apparent reason against their zone,'' Balcomb said. "That really hurt us."
Conversely, the Commodores prospered from behind the 3-point line, hitting 10 of 20 attempts. Forward Christina Wirth, who scored a team-high 14 points, hit four treys.
Summitt could smile about this afterward. She joked with Bjorklund by saying, "She likes to shoot the three ball but she doesn't always see people that like to shoot it."
The Lady Vols overcame the sharpshooters' siege with larceny, recording 14 steals. Alexis Hornbuckle had six, moving to within three of tying Bridgette Gordon's career mark for steals (333).
Vanderbilt's chances took a big hit when Wirth picked up her fourth foul with 13:38 left. The foul occurred moments after her trey had pulled Vanderbilt to 51-50.
Tennessee responded to the pivotal moment by scoring 12 of the next 15 points.
The Lady Vols will drop from No. 1 today when the Associated Press weekly poll is released. Still that doesn't change the fact that on Sunday Tennessee looked more like Tennessee.
Oregon sends Lady Vols home from…
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
Comments » 24
dopedawg writes:
keep the faith girls, we do!!!!!!! Good job!!
bigorangedaddy writes:
If Candace Parker would worry less about looking "cool" and really put forth some effort, she would be unstoppable!!!!
Musicman74 writes:
Nice rebound Ladies. Keep the faith. Need to keep working hard if we want to win a second stright National Championship.
GO BIG ORANGE!!!
fortandrews writes:
Come on Parker - you win games with DEFENCE, You need to really work on your defence, Scoring points is only PART of the game. You have to work on both ends. Why not give it a try, you might like it.
pdhuff#552644 writes:
Good job, now go and beat Bama or whomever's next.
vol4jesus writes:
Defense is right....Defense and rebounding win CHAMPIONSHIPS!!! Where have we heard that b4?
houvol#438636 writes:
Good road win! Let's make the LSU lost the last of this season.
GreerVol22 writes:
CParkers problem is that she's been told she's pretty one too many times. I guess Coach Pat served some humble pie in practice the last few days.
faithfulvol writes:
I told ya'll the other day. We win and people still find negativity. How great are TN VOL FANS!
Parker you are awesome on the bball court and you are pretty too!
Go Lady Vols, all the way to the Championship!
GREAT GAME!
ggriggs939#223122 writes:
Candace is SPHERICALLY COOL. Being so, she attracts special attention from the other team as well as the zebras.
utmdm writes:
Coulda sworn that was Parker making some defensive plays and blocking shots out there. Must of got my jersey numbers crossed up.
Titan writes:
Always great to see Memorial Gym turned into TBA West - way to go ladies!
anthony writes:
How much better has women's basketball gotten the last 10 years? Used to laugh at the plays now i wonder just how good they are.
bmaples writes:
It's not Parker that's the problem -- she's doing her part and more. It's the rest of the cast that aren't getting it done.
Interesting that the story mentioned Fuller and some others, but not Hornbuckle and Bobbitt. I didn't watch the game (traveling), but the box score is interesting: more minutes for Fuller than for Anosike, yet Anosike fouls out; Bobbitt with only 2 assists; 18 turnovers to 16 assists.
A good win, especially on the road -- but 18 turnovers will get you beat many times. Still work to do by Bobbitt, Hornbuckle, and Anosike. Might be interesting to put someone else in there instead of Anosike (Fuller?).
reg_mza#219136 writes:
bmaples - there is nothing interesting to say about the game when looking at the box score.
Fuller was effective and played more minutes because of it.
Anosike got into foul trouble and had to sit.
Bobbitt only had two assists but ran the half court very effectively and helped keep the half court offense moving and not stagnant.
Hornbuckle was best described as an "constant irritant" by the announcer yesterday. Her defense was so irritating for Vandy that it was the quote of the day.
Parker got layup after layup after layup all game long because A Vandy did not focus on the superstar enough and B the other Lady Vols found her wide open underneath the basket and C they did not box her out.
Also, all Lady Vols passed well and assists were distributed evenly amongst them all so Bobbitt just had to do her normal high energy thing and the rest of the gals made it easier on each other.
johnlg00 writes:
Good post, reg_mza. Best overall team effort in quite some time, with positive contributions up and down the roster. Candace is so smooth in her movements that she perhaps LOOKS "cool" when she is in fact moving as fast as anyone on the court. She is probably no worse than second (behind Folkes of LSU) in the league in blocked shots. She is probably no worse than second in steals on this team, behind Hornbuckle, who will demolish the Lady Vols career steals record. Besides, she expends so much energy on offense, where NO ONE else can do what she does, that she can't also be a defensive monster. Really aggressive defense leads to more fouls, too--ask Anosike. Shannon doesn't have big assist numbers because Angie is the only catch-and-shoot player we have. Candace usually has to maneuver with the dribble so much that passes to her don't result in assists, as those are measured statistically. Most of our players don't move that well without the ball. That said, I agree that Shannon is not playing as well right now as she did last year--too many turnovers. I feel a LOT better about our chances to repeat after this game. The next challenge is to keep doing it.
adimatteo#261830 writes:
nice job EVERYONE. I know it takes the fun out of these things, but reality is, cant win them all, lots of girls, schools trying for the same as us. Our program is great, players are awesome for all they do onand off the court. Keep it up, and I dont apologize (and they shouldnt either) for fact that we have smart girls, good students, great athletes, with good looks...who work harder on and off court than anyone I knew in my college days...
Good luck for the rest ofthe season, Ill be there, hope to see you all in Tampa!!
PureOrange writes:
Great win! It was not what we are capable of doing, but it was MUCH better than we have seen for quite some time.
Bobbitt still needs to get back to her old self. She still is making some bad plays that she used to not make. Bjorklund still passes up some open shots which she should take. But overall, I saw some hustle and desire which had been absent.
As for Parker playing more defense, I think she does a great job. Could she do more on defense, of course, but do we want to risk her in foul trouble? She is our leader. We need her on the floor. Much of her defense is actually just the fact that she is there. All you have to do is look at the difference in the way teams play against us when she is on the bench. With Parker, what you see is only part of what you actually get.
Keep it up ladies. If we can get 40 minutes of effort and desire we can add another banner. Without it, we will watch someone else raise a banner.
ps11824 writes:
Let's not get DOWN on Parker so much. Just imagine if all others contributed as many points, rebs as CP3 does, even on her off games, what awesome overall stats we would see. And why shouldn't they? They are highly recruited athletes. Pat did not go out and settle for any old ballers. She chose them for their talent and if they are not contributing 100%, don't blame it ALL on CP3. Sometimes she doesn't bring it all either. She shouldn't be dissed for being nice to look at either. Get real, we are talking basketball - not ESPN the Magazine. Johnlg00, I enjoy your contributions to this forum. Hornbuckle looked much better yesterday, but still is not in true form, IMHO. Do you agree? I certainly hope she is not physically ill. If she is OK, she will get back to her normal high energy driving abilities, I feel certain of that. Shannon seems to be doing "too much" and getting into crowded situations. The attempted ally oops are not looking good. If we can't get them up, we need to make good crisp passes, and get them off quicker, non telegraphed. I saw some attempts yesterday I could have intercepted, deflected. There's always second and third options, no need to force a pass you've had on call-waiting for 5 seconds.
MrBamSeydu writes:
I agree with comment #2 (bigorangedaddy)
jdcdjc#246285 writes:
At times Parker looks like th kid on the playground that worries too much about getting dirty. She can mix it up with the best of them when she sets her mind to it. They played more like a team yesterday, instead of everyone else standing around watching or waiting for Parker to do something and I am still trying to figure out if this is Pats, Parker, or the teams idea.
I just hope they watch the tape and see how much better things work with them playing as a team.
janchattn#610676 writes:
I agree with jh43. But where do people get the idea Candace is trying to look cool? She IS cool! She makes it look easy because she is so talented. And you can tell she enjoys playing, the photographers catch a look on her face when she's shooting sometimes that shows pure joy, it's great to see. Anyways, I feel a lot better about the team after Sunday's game. Congratulations Lady Vols on a great win!
volboy81#211803 writes:
I was in Nashville at the game yesterday. It was great to see SO much orange! Vol fans are the best! The Lady Vols looked like the Lady Vols again.
dopedawg writes:
#1 Parker is pretty. She is talented and does her job.
#2 Everyone played a lot better
#3 They got to keep this up, or no #8.
#4 Hope that LSU looses sometime soon, then maybe we have a chance at a SEC title.
DONT JUST KEEP THE FAITH--PASS IT AROUND!!!
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