The Tennessee Lady Vols have a chance to get on track as they face the No. 3 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish in a big women’s basketball match-up Monday.
Will the inconsistency of the Tennessee Lady Vols continue on Monday? After an embarrassing loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks last week, Holly Warlick’s team fell to 11-4 on the year despite a 3-2 record against Top 25 opponents and a 1-1 record against Top 10 opponents.
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Now, Warlick’s team travels to South Bend, Ind. with a huge opportunity against a team whose only loss was a 91-81 disappointment at UConn.
The Lady Vols are more than good enough to beat this team, and there should be no worries about their defense. But you have to worry if they will once again have an atrocious shooting night and refuse to go down low when attempting to score out of their half-court sets.
This game will be a contrast of styles, as Notre Dame is clearly a more fun team to watch. Led by three-point sharpshooters Madison Cable along with Marina and Michaela Mabrey, Brianna Turner is the only consistent inside player for the Irish.
For the Lady Vols to win this game, they need to slow down the tempo and utilize Mercedes Russell and Bashaara Graves way more than they have been. That is where their mismatch is, and if Holly Warlick has any coaching intelligence at all, she will know to exploit that mismatch.
They are not going to outshoot the Irish, especially with the massive inconsistencies of Diamond DeShields and Te’a Cooper, who have had some awful shooting nights.
However, if the Lady Vols are going to win, those two will at least have to keep the Irish defense honest by making a few shots, something they have failed miserably to do in all of their losses. The Lady Vols have shot below 30 percent from three in those four games, and it was usually due to a terrible night from Cooper or DeShields.
But again, part of that is on Warlick relying to much on the perimeter.
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The Lady Vols have a huge mismatch in their favor underneath the basket. If they can exploit that, make enough outside shots to keep the Irish defense honest, and continue to play defense on their end as well as they have been, they could definitely pull out this victory.
But all of those things have to be executed to perfection on the road.