Holly Warlick and the Tennessee Lady Vols came together with an Elite Eight run, but a loss to the Syracuse Orange means they still under-achieved.
Three games in, we all bought it. Holly Warlick just needed time for Diamond DeShields and Mercedes Russell to get fully healthy, and the ridiculously talented team would gel at just the right time and make a deep run in the tournament.
They did just that with surprise victories over the Arizona State Sun Devils and Ohio State Buckeyes, and the upset losses of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, South Carolina Gamecocks, and Stanford Cardinal meant they had a clear path to the national title game and to end their Final Four drought.
All they had to do was beat a team they had already beaten earlier in the year, before they gelled. Then, the worst season in program history would be forgotten. The fall out of the Top 25, the 13 losses, and the No. 7 seed would be irrelevant.
But it didn’t happen.
With Jordan Reynolds sidelined due to injury, Holly Warlick’s seat got warm once again as her Lady Vols looked completely lost in beating Syracuse’s zone defense or their full-court press, surrendering 21 turnovers in the process.
Compared to how bad the season went, it’s hard to say they under-achieved by losing with their glue guard sidelined. But given the talent of this team, Reynolds’s injury should be no excuse.
If you look at the recruiting rankings of the Lady Vols players combined with what they have shown they can do on the court, this team should not be too far behind UConn in terms of talent. Reynolds’s injury should not be enough to lose to a No. 4 seed in the tournament.
Yes, it’s not surprising given the season. But a strong case could be made that injuries kept the elite players, Diamond DeShields, Te’a Cooper, and Mercedes Russell, combined with Bashaara Graves as a veteran, just needed time to gel. They finally appeared to do so in the tournament, meaning they should have reached their full potential.
Yet a single injury to Reynolds caused them not only to lose but to get outworked, outcoached, outhustled, and embarrassed in their 89-67 loss to the Orange.
Tennessee looked completely lost in trying to beat a zone defense and a press, which falls on coaching.
The good news is there’s still a ton of talent on this team coming back, as lots of these players are extremely young, and another offseason of playing together should help a lot.
In this context, Holly Warlick should keep her job because of her team’s youth. But she has got to improve her coaching in the future, and if Tennessee does not dramatically improve next year, she should be out of chances.