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Tennessee Lady Vols only shot at NCAA Tournament is name brand

By Caleb Calhoun

ATLANTA, GA - MARCH 14: A general view of megaphones for the Tennessee Volunteers cheerleaders against the South Carolina Gamecocks during the quarterfinals of the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament at Georgia Dome on March 14, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - MARCH 14: A general view of megaphones for the Tennessee Volunteers cheerleaders against the South Carolina Gamecocks during the quarterfinals of the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament at Georgia Dome on March 14, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /
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After the Tennessee Lady Vols’ loss to the Kentucky Wildcats, the women’s basketball Volunteers only have one shot at reaching the Big Dance.

They had six chances in their final 10 games, including the regular season and SEC Tournament. All the Tennessee Lady Vols had to do was win one of those games, either at the South Carolina Gamecocks, LSU Tigers or Arkansas Razorbacks, at home against the Texas A&M Aggies or Mississippi State Bulldogs, or against the Kentucky Wildcats in the postseason.

Instead, Kellie Harper’s team lost all of them. What’s worse is the most recent of those games left the worst impression. UT lost to five of those teams in a row down the stretch of the regular season, but they rebounded with three straight wins against teams outside of the top 100 of the RPI. Then they beat the Missouri Tigers, a horrible team, in their first SEC Tourney game.

However, the Tennessee Lady Vols only beat the Vanderbilt Commodores by four at home. They only beat the Auburn Tigers by one. And they trailed Missouri at halftime, needing a dominant third quarter to pull away. So they looked bad in all of those wins.

The best that could be said was they were running the table against all bad teams, and at 21-10 overall, they have no bad losses. However, they have no wins against top 30 RPI teams. Kentucky was their final chance Friday night. All they did was lose by over 20 points on a neutral court. That’s embarrassing.

Rocky Top has shown time and time again this year, despite running the table against every below average team, that it is not ready to compete with the top teams. Their only two decent wins are at home against the LSU Tigers and at home against the Georgia Bulldogs. Nobody else they beat is in the top 60, and the Alabama Crimson Tide are the only other top 100 win.

As a result, they close out the season ranked No. 60 in the RPI with the No. 92 ranked strength of schedule. In case you’re interested, that’s the exact same ranking they had at the end of last season. The 2018-2019 backed into the NCAA Tournament due to name brand, but it wasn’t enough to save Holly Warlick’s job.

If this year’s Tennessee Lady Vols get into the tournament, it will once again be due to the brand of the program and nothing else. After that bad loss against another quality team, they have not left a good impression to any objective eye.

Now, this isn’t an indictment against Harper or saying she deserves the same scrutiny Warlick deserves. After all, Harper is in her first year. She lost her key guard, Zaay Green, for the season, and her team is extremely young. So the future is bright.

But it till goes without saying that the Tennessee Lady Vols had the talent to not be a bubble team. That’s what they are, and there’s a very decent chance this is the first year they don’t make the Big Dance. That would be a dramatic collapse for a once-proud program.

Such a level of history that made this program proud is the only factor that may make the NCAA Selection Committee generous towards them. Nothing else would warrant them making the tournament with their resume this year.