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Tennessee Lady Vols 2018-2019 preview by position: Back court outlook

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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Biggest Questions

1. Can Rennia Davis play inside?

The Tennessee Lady Vols had a lot of advantages last year with Rennia Davis and Jaime Nared being able to play on the court together. Nared’s versatility in playing inside was a huge help. Davis, meanwhile, showed as much promise doing that.

This year, though, with Nared gone, Davis’s ability to play on the inside could be a huge deal. Holly Warlick has a ton of young talent at guard, and it may prompt her to go small at times. That can only happen if Davis develops even more of an inside game. And if she does, expect this team to be much tougher to handle.

2. Which freshman will make an impact first?

Once again, this was a top five recruiting class where three of four players are in the back court. And they are already likely penciled in as direct backups. Zaay Green is the backup off-guard, Jazmine Massengill is the backup point guard and Rae Burrell is the backup wing.

We know about which players have the most recruiting hype. But who’s going to make the first impact? Again, Warlick will want to go small sometimes, especially if Davis can make that inside transition. So that’ll require one of these players to be able to live up to their hype early on. It could also depend on which returning players make the least amount of development.

3. How much of a leap did Evina Westbrook make?

We already talked about her in our previous slide, but this requires to be fleshed out even more. Evina Westbrook is the point guard of the team and was the top recruit in the 2017 Tennessee Lady Vols class. Nobody on this team was rated higher as a recruit to begin with than she was.

So when you talk about the future of this program under Holly Warlick and the way she re-stacked the roster, Westbrook is probably the most important part of that. As a sophomore, this is where she can make that leap. And the level of leap she made will dictate the level of improvement this team has, or regression if it comes to that.