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Tennessee Lady Vols lose at No. 21 ranked Aggies: 3 takeaways

By Caleb Calhoun

DALLAS, TX - MARCH 15: Smokey, the mascot of the Tennessee Volunteers, performs during a time out in the second half against the Wright State Raiders in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at American Airlines Center on March 15, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
DALLAS, TX - MARCH 15: Smokey, the mascot of the Tennessee Volunteers, performs during a time out in the second half against the Wright State Raiders in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at American Airlines Center on March 15, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) /
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The Tennessee Lady Vols fell to the No. 21 ranked Texas A&M Aggies 79-62. Here are three takeaways from the women’s basketball Volunteers’ loss.

After a huge road win over the Missouri Tigers Sunday, the Tennessee Lady Vols were not able to keep the momentum going Thursday at the No. 21 ranked Texas A&M Aggies. Holly Warlick’s team fell in College Station by a score of 79-62.

With the loss, UT fell to 17-9 on the year and 6-7 in the SEC. Texas A&M, meanwhile, improved to 20-6 and 9-4 in the conference after losing two straight. Tennessee had won five of six coming into the game but couldn’t keep the momentum.

The loss pretty much ends any chance of UT to be one of the top four teams in the SEC Tournament. Meanwhile, it puts them a bit back on the bubble with one more chance at a quality victory in the regular season coming up: a home date Sunday against the No. 13 ranked South Carolina Gamecocks, who just lost at home to the Kentucky Wildcats. Here are three takeaways from Tennessee’s loss.

1. Bad long stretches have returned.

Whenever the Tennessee Lady Vols, you can almost always point to one horrible stretch they had, and it’s usually some sort of second half collapse. That happened again in this game. UT should’ve gone into halftime down 32-30. But they allowed a three with seconds left in a huge mistake to go down five, and that play wrecked their momentum in the third quarter, where they were outscored 27-12. You would have thought they turned a corner on these things after what happened Sunday, but they went right back to their old selves.

2. Back court defense was terrible.

It was bad enough that Kayla Wells was red-hot from three, going 5-of-8. But the guards made things worse by letting her and Chennedy Carter drive on them all night. Wells’s three-point shooting alone didn’t get her to 29 points. She also got to the paint a lot. Meanwhile, Carter was 0-for-6 from three. But the Lady Vols would continue to let her penetrate into the key before stepping up to play defense. The constant backpedaling, particularly on transition plays, was pathetic to watch. And it was a big reason A&M went off in the third.

3. Where is the three-point shooting?

Tennessee hasn’t been able to buy a bucket outside for much of its SEC season. Before and after her injury, Meme Jackson has been atrocious from the line as of recent, and she was again on this night. Now she’s barely taking shots and went 0-for-2 from outside. Rennia Davis had an off-night as well with only 10 points and went 0-for-3 from beyond the arc, scoring only 10 points and showing no aggression by never getting to the line. Holly Warlick can only do so much coaching when her team continues to come up so short from three, and that has to be fixed.