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Tennessee Lady Vols snap skid with win vs. LSU: 3 takeaways

By Caleb Calhoun

CLEVELAND - APRIL 01: Fans of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers support their tema against the North Carolina Tar Heels during their National Semifinal game of the 2007 NCAA Women's Final Four at the Quicken Loans Arena on April 1, 2007 in Cleveland, Ohio. Tennessee won 56-50. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND - APRIL 01: Fans of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers support their tema against the North Carolina Tar Heels during their National Semifinal game of the 2007 NCAA Women's Final Four at the Quicken Loans Arena on April 1, 2007 in Cleveland, Ohio. Tennessee won 56-50. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) /
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The Tennessee Lady Vols’ six-game losing streak is over. Here are three takeaways from the women’s basketball Volunteers’ 74-65 victory over the LSU Tigers.

The losing streak is over. After falling in six straight games, five straight SEC games, the Tennessee Lady Vols were able to finally come away with a win Sunday. And it wasn’t against a bad team either, which is to be commendable.

Holly Warlick’s players largely stayed in control of the game against the LSU Tigers. This was an LSU team that had just beat the Alabama Crimson Tide on the road, so they were definitely a dangerous team overall.

With the win, Tennessee improves to 13-7 overall and 2-5 in the SEC, while LSU falls to 12-7 and 3-4 in the SEC. This was huge for UT in many ways, and not just because it ended such a bad streak. It’s how they ended it. Here are three takeaways from their win.

1. Winning without the three-ball

This is still a negative for the Tennessee Lady Vols overall, as they continue to have major issues shooting from the outside. Meme Jackson being out doesn’t help that. But winning a game against a good team when you go 0-for-13 from the three-point line shows a level of versatility that we haven’t seen from this team from a while. At least they were able to find other ways to score this time, and getting to 70 with numbers like that is amazing. Warlick’s players were able to score out of more half-court sets, they were highly efficient from the foul line, and they were able to force 25 turnovers to get transition buckets. Doing these other little things more often can be very beneficial for them.

2. Rennia Davis came back to life

Evina Westbrook has been stealing the show so much this year for Rocky Top that we forgot about the other sophomore who was part of the heralded 2017 recruiting class on Rocky Top. Rennia Davis hadn’t scored in double figures since this team’s close loss to the Kentucky Wildcats, but she was the offensive star in this game, scoring 24 points on 8-of-15 shooting and going 8-for-8 from the free throw line. She added 7 rebounds and finally allowed for Westbrook to have an off-night. If they can both be reliable, it makes things much easier. Davis finally shouldered the load for once.

3. No major runs allowed

Tennessee has been a team to collapse for about a quarter and a half, and that was the nature of this losing streak. But that didn’t happen in this game. They were not outscored in any of the quarters. Instead, they kept their foot on the pedal, and when LSU made a run in the fourth, they stepped up their offensive game, which is why that quarter’s scoring was tied at 22. Should they keep their focus throughout an entire game, they could beat anybody. It was the first time in a while that they did that on Sunday.