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3 takeaways from Tennessee Lady Vols win at Vanderbilt

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - JANUARY 21: Tennessee Volunteers fans hold up a cardboard photo of women's basketball coach Pat Summitt during the game against the Connecticut Huskies at Thompson-Boling Arena on January 21, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennessee defeated Connecticut 60-57. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - JANUARY 21: Tennessee Volunteers fans hold up a cardboard photo of women's basketball coach Pat Summitt during the game against the Connecticut Huskies at Thompson-Boling Arena on January 21, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennessee defeated Connecticut 60-57. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /
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The Tennessee Lady Vols scored a 74-64 win over the Vanderbilt Commodores Sunday. Here are three takeaways from the women’s basketball Volunteers’ victory.

They struggled way more than they should have for three and a half quarters. But the Tennessee Lady Vols were able to pull away from the worst team in the SEC late in the fourth to score a 10-point victory over Vanderbilt.

Holly Warlick’s team was coming off a huge win over the Texas A&M Aggies to get back on track on Thursday. This win marks the first time they have won consecutive games since their first loss of the season, to that same Texas A&M team, three and a half weeks ago.

With the win, Tennessee improves to 19-4 overall and 7-3 in the SEC. Vanderbilt, meanwhile, falls to 6-18 overall and 2-8 in the SEC.

This win won’t do anything to help the Tennessee Lady Vols’ RPI, and neither will the next game, a road trip to the Arkansas Razorbacks. But after that, they have another mini test with a three game stand against the Georgia Bulldogs, Alabama Crimson Tide and then Missouri Tigers on the road.

And they still have a rematch with the South Carolina Gamecocks, this one in Knoxville, to close out the season. With six games left on the year before the conference tournament, they still have a lot to play for. Here are three takeaways from the Tennessee Lady Vols’ win on Sunday.

1. Veterans are finally taking over when needed.

For the second straight game, Mercedes Russell and Jaime Nared showed the necessary aggression to take over a close game. The Tennessee Lady Vols have a ton of freshmen, and those players are going to be streaky at times. In this game, they were all suffering off-days. So Russell and Nared took over to avoid a loss.

Russell was aggressive inside all day and finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Nared finally got her groove back, scoring 30 points and adding 14 rebounds. She also did what she should have been doing for a while now: driving to the basket and drawing fouls rather than just hope her outside shooting is on. The result? She hit 15 free throws Sunday.

2. Freshmen are missing too many easy shots.

Mercedes Russell and Jaime Nared may have been aggressive. And the Tennessee Lady Vols may have a great group of freshmen going forward. But those freshmen have got to get better underneath the basket.

Vanderbilt is undersized and not good on the inside. But Tennessee missed far too many layups. Both Evina Westbrook and Rennia Davis had too many issues with easy shots. Anastasia Hayes was aggressive enough to get 10 points off the bench. But she also missed easy buckets, and she was only 3-for-8 from the free throw line. It’s one thing to be off when shooting outside. But the Lady Vols are supposed to always dominate the paint. That includes guards driving and finishing. They weren’t finishing at all on Sunday, and that’s something that has to improve.

3. Perimeter defense was terrible.

Again, this is on the freshmen running the backcourt. The Tennessee Lady Vols dominated in the paint on defense. But they were terrible on the outside. Vanderbilt’s guards appeared to be scoring at will at certain points in the game. And if Cierra Walker did not have an off-game, they could have easily won on Sunday.

Tennessee allowed the ‘Dores to shoot 47 percent from the field, and almost all of their forced turnovers came from underneath the basket. The guards got caught napping a lot in this game. Maybe it was because they weren’t up to play Vanderbilt, but that mentality will cost them going forward. They cannot be as bad on defense and at finishing layups as they were in this game if they want to be any sort of threat in the NCAA Tournament.