NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Tennessee shrugged off a dreadful first half against the worst team in the SEC, scored the first 12 points of the second half and beat Alabama 68-49 in the first round of the SEC women's basketball tournament.
Don't let the turnaround fool you. The first half was probably the more enlightening of the two, if you're trying to assess this team's post-season chances.
UT is two losses away from a school-record-tying 11 losses in a season for several reasons - all of which were evident against Alabama.
For example, the Lady Vols were too careless with the basketball and a step slow defensively against Alabama. Sound familiar?
Neither deficiency qualifies as breaking news in an up-and-down season that includes more downs than in any of the last 12 seasons. Nonetheless, you might have anticipated a greater sense of urgency upon entering post-season play.
Instead, the Lady Vols demonstrated the sort of intensity you would expect from a November exhibition game in falling behind 31-30 at halftime.
"Sometimes, this team is far too laid-back for my liking," UT coach Pat Summitt said. "I don't think playing basketball is anything casual."
After more than 1,000 victories and eight national championships, everybody has figured out how laid-back Summitt isn't. But this team doesn't fall neatly in line with all the championship teams that preceded it. In fact, it defies the cliche: "A team adopts the personality of its coach."
The famous Summitt stare hasn't penetrated this bunch. Neither has her message, no matter how loud or demonstrative.
Sure, youth has something to do with it. The Lady Vols rely heavily on freshmen, five of whom were on the floor at the same time in the first half.
After 30 games, inexperience isn't the biggest issue. Improvement is.
This team hasn't gotten better. It has gotten worse.
There are exceptions among the freshmen, most notably center Kelley Cain, who has fought through a painful knee injury to become the team's most consistent offensive force.
But you can't ignore the overall results. With far less experience, the Lady Vols reeled off consecutive early season victories over Stanford, Gonzaga and Rutgers. Conversely, they entered the SEC tournament with six losses in their previous 11 games.
Despite that long stretch of mediocrity, a 75-66 victory over 19th-ranked Vanderbilt in the last regular-season game might have indicated a transformation was at hand. If the light came on against Vanderbilt, it went out in the first half against Alabama.
And it underscored the challenge facing the Lady Vols in post-season play.
"With this team, we get off to slow starts," Summitt said. "And it can cost us against most teams."
Alabama isn't most teams. It stumbled into the SEC tournament by losing 13 of 14 games. It's 2-42 all-time against the Lady Vols and hasn't come within double digits in 11 years.
Yet it was leading at halftime.
A lackadaisical first half to open an SEC tournament would hold little meaning for your typical Summitt team, which might trudge through the opening act of the tournament on its way to a championship. But these Lady Vols have something to prove and they didn't prove it against Alabama.
Summitt has tried every trick in her vast coaching repertoire to motivate this team. She even kicked it out of its Thompson-Boling Arena locker room in hopes of kicking it in gear.
After all the tricks and kicks, she still had to rally her team at halftime against the worst team in the league. What does that tell you?
It tells you the team is as laid-back as ever. And laid-back usually gets laid out in tournament play.
Sports editor John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knoxnews.com.
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Comments » 16
WeLoveTennesseeVols writes:
You are so critical, why don't you go out there and play the game a while and see if you can do any better. We fans don't care about all of this, we love the Lady Vols, and take them at face value, go report on something else, Phil Fulmer or something!
KCHS63 writes:
Maybe if you got the kind of effort you're talking about in your own home, you wouldn't have to go all pervert in your newspaper reading. Ya think?
tnmantravel#531151 writes:
i agree with adams
the only good players this team has
is johnson, cain and stricklen
a major blow was the loss of their best player vaugh
i've not seen mcmahan play that much to know if she
would have been valuable
bass, bjorkland, gray, manning and smallbone are useless
i had hope bjorkland would be good to great player as a sophomore
she is awful, absolutely just taking up space
if she is not wide open for a set shot, she is useless
her behind the back and between the legs dribbling
is comical....absolutely going nowhere with the ball...
girl, dribble between your legs, then do a "crossover dribble"
and drive the darn ball to the goal you will be open for a layup or dish for an assist...
summitt needs to show her some video tape
of a player named tim hardaway....
bjorkland must drive pat nuts....she would be one
of the first i'd replace with recruiting
also i'm going to go out on a limb here....
pearl can out coach summitt any day of the week
if summitt had not of signed c.holdsclaw and c.parker
she would only have 3 championships and
they came in the infancy of womens basketball when only schools like old dominion and la.tech were the competition...whole different environment for recruiting and so on....from afar (my vantage point) summitt seems almost too "old school"
probably just frustration talking here
just throwin' it out there
AllLadyVol writes:
You would think if the same player hears the same thing from Pat every game, it would start to sink in. For example, Shekinna Stricklen usually is more passive on offense in the first half. Pat barks at her at halftime to take the ball to the hole, and then in the second half she lights it up.
I really don't think post play is the problem. Cain, Brewer, Stricklen and Johnson have given very good effort lately, What must just drive Pat insane is the guard play. At times we seem incapable of understanding the offense or running an offensive set correctly. The only true point guard we have on the team is Bass, and she just doesn't seem to understand that you need to pass the ball before the clock hits the ten second mark.
I'm just venting here. I still love my Lady Vols. It's just aggravating when you see good talent on the floor that doesn't push themselves hard enough.
Here's hoping I get to stay in Little Rock more than one day :)
bmaples writes:
I think Adams is right. That first half is a caution, and I'm sure the coaching staff sees it. Not sure the team does. Also not sure the team gets angry enough, particularly at themselves.
First-half stat that supports John's thesis? Rebounds. They were continually beat on the boards, which is all about want-to. Alabama had more want-to in that first half.
If the second-half Lady Vols show up for forty minutes against Florida, they will win by double digits. If that other team wearing orange shows up, they'll lose by even more. Here's hoping for two halves of second-half Vols.
Bruce in Louisville
rocky_topper writes:
I have to agree about bjorkland. Game-time is really not the time to spend 40 minutes practicing dribbling skills!
mogreer_tn#213464 writes:
You are dead on; I thought I was the only one seeing this...especially with bjorkland. I'm a BIG Lady Vol fan and will support them regardless, but I too have wondered were they watching film.
It's obvious that their opponents watch tape on them.
I'm constantly laughing when I see bjorkland with the ball, it is comical. When she has the ball with defenders around her, I can only think about mouse trying to escape from cats, while the cats are toying with the mouse.
I want get into your other comments, but you are truly accurate.
I still love my Lady Vols.
LadyVolFanForever writes:
bmaples, I agree we need to only see the "second-half" Lady Vols from now on. Postseason does not get any easier !
Unlike some of these posters, I do not think personally attacking these players and trying to destroy their confidence/skillset has any place here. The coaches know much more about this than we do, let them handle it. If you want to blow off steam and try to impress with "your" coaching knowledge, do it with your friends over a brew. You are talking about Lady Vols here, young ladies who are trying to learn their way in this world. The young ladies are all someones daughters, sisters, friends. Coach Summitt is tough but she knows when to back off to prevent destroying confidence. If she is just "old school" as one poster thinks, all I can say is thank goodness for old school and for Coach Summitt !
Go Lady Vols !
xvolx writes:
I would agree with Bass, Manning, Gray and Smallbone, but not Bjorkland. She is not quick enough to dribble around looking for a shot. I don't see any offensive sets that set screens for her to get open. Bjorkland is a pure shooter being used in the wrong way. I would agree that she doesn't have footspeed to play good defense. All five you mentioned get beat off the dribble drive.
utang1602#204610 writes:
No fan has the right to call any player useless. When you put on a uniform and start playing or stand on the sidelines and coach, then maybe you would have the right to critique in such a negative, useless manner.
Bruce Pearl would disagree greatly with the craziness about him outcoaching Pat. And you could take that sentence about if Pat hadn't gotten Candace or Chamique, she would never have won the other 5 championships and insert the name of an athlete at any school that has won a championship in any sport.
Re: Bjorklund. She had a bad game, that's correct. She's had issues with consistency, correct. However, she scored 21 points against LSU and 20+ in other games this season and is capable of igniting like fire at any point from behind the arc. That's always going to be her role, and if you listen to Pat, she wants her to continue shooting.
LOL at the Pat is "old school" comment. That's right, she is—old school as in won the national title last year.
This article served its purpose—to stir things up. That's all John Adams ever does. Waste of space
slsmithsr#269458 writes:
Brewer seems to be unstoppable down low. She has a ture scorer's mentality.If she keeps her head in the game and play smart defense, she could be a wild card. Gray played better than I've seen her all year. She hit the boards really hard got a rebound that really surprised me.
ladyvolfaithful62 writes:
Right on. I would add, those who can, do, - those who cannot write about what they would do if they could, but they can't or they would be wearing the orange uniform or be a world class coach.
Timed_vol (Inactive) writes:
yes, the passing is awful, as is much of the ball-handling. that hasn't changed.
HOWEVER - I think the LV's will match UF in emotional energy tonight. Pat will put a 'no way, no how are we losing this game' on them, and I look for a VERY STRONG defensive effort.
The LV's got embarassed at UF, and that will motivate them as well.
LadyVolFanForever writes:
I agree. They embarassed themselves and the uniform the last 7-8 minutes at Fla.
They should win tonight on sheer determination, emotion and heart ! With great defense and rebounding, the shots will fall. Go Lady Vols !
Ralph_Crampton writes:
Theonly real thing wrong with the lady Vols is lack of team quickness...there is not a coach in the world that can teach team speed...not even the great coach Pat.
johnlg00#206211 writes:
The quickness issue is not one of foot-speed, it is an issue of mental-processing speed. The players are slow in recognizing what is happening at any given moment. Once they recognize it correctly--if they do--they have to decide what to do about it. THEN they have to execute it. More experienced players play the game in, or even ahead of, real time and automatically do what the game situation calls for.
That is why Larry Bird, for example, was such a great player. Most of the rest of the NBA players were bigger, quicker, or both in sheer physical terms, but Bird saw not only the whole court at a given time, he saw how things WOULD be a second or two before anyone else. He got rebound position before the shot went up; he knew where the help WOULD come from, so he knew which team-mate would be open; he knew the pass the opponent would HAVE to make, so he could get into the passing lane; and so on. Most of our gals haven't learned that yet, but Pat and experience CAN teach them, and when they learn it, they will be quicker.
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