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Tennessee Lady Vols losing Diamond Deshields for 2017-2018; Holly Warlick deletes Twitter account after responding

By Caleb Calhoun

Feb 23, 2017; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Lady Volunteers guard Diamond DeShields (11) reacts during the game against the Florida Gators at Thompson-Boling Arena. Mandatory Credit: Brianna Paciorka/ Knoxville News Sentinel via USA TODAY NETWORK
Feb 23, 2017; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Lady Volunteers guard Diamond DeShields (11) reacts during the game against the Florida Gators at Thompson-Boling Arena. Mandatory Credit: Brianna Paciorka/ Knoxville News Sentinel via USA TODAY NETWORK /
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The Tennessee Lady Vols took a bit hit Friday as news broke that Diamond DeShields is not returning to the Volunteers for the 2017-2018 season.

With their top three players returning from 2016-2017 and the No. 1 recruiting class coming in, this was supposed to be the year that the Tennessee Lady Vols return to glory.

However, news broke on Friday in a report by Dan Fleser of the Knoxville News Sentinel that Diamond DeShields, by far the best player on the 2016-2017 team, is not returning to the school.

DeShields transferred to the Lady Vols from the North Carolina Tar Heels and became the go-to player last year.

So her departure alone created enough turmoil for the program.

But Holly Warlick’s response made it even weirder. She first gave a regular quote about it, which you can read in the same article.

"“Diamond has opted to forego her final collegiate season,” Warlick said in a school release. “She earned a degree from UT and now has a chance to play professionally.”"

Warlick added that DeShields didn’t give her a reason, and this comes after DeShields’s announcement earlier in the year that she would return.

But less than an hour after the announcement, Warlick tweeted a smiley face emoji and nothing else.

According to another report in the Knoxville News Sentinel, this time by Dana Sulonen of the Knoxville News Sentinel, Warlick then deleted her Twitter account @HollyWarlick.

However, she still clarified what she was trying to say with this quote.

"“People were asking me if I was OK; the tweet was intended to say I’m OK,” Warlick said. “People who know my character know that wasn’t intended at Diamond. That’s the truth. I don’t tweet negative stuff. I apologize if it offended anyone.”"

Regardless of all of this, DeShields’s departure is bad news for the Tennessee Lady Vols. And it’s also bad news for Warlick.

She needed this year to get the program back onto the national map where it belongs. And it just got a lot harder.

Add in the drama surrounding her tweet, and things don’t look good for the Tennessee Lady Vols program right now.