Tennessee Lady Vols dominate Furman Paladins 90-53: Three takeaways

Kellie Harper’s Tennessee Lady Vols are now 3-1. Here’s what we learned from the women’s basketball Volunteers’ victory.

In a return to Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville between two road games against Big 12 teams, the Tennessee Lady Vols came away with a dominant win. It was a great rebound from their overtime loss to the West Virginia Mountaineers in Morgantown, W. Va. on Sunday.

UT beat the Furman Paladins 90-53 with a dominant offensive performance. A 12-0 run in the first quarter put them up by 18 at one point, and they dominated the rest of the way. Furman only got within single digits one more time early in the second quarter.

With the win, Kellie Harper’s team improves to 3-1 and will travel to Austin to face the Texas Longhorns on Sunday for their next outing. Jackie Carson’s Paladins fall to 1-3 and are set to face the Elon Phoenix that Sunday. Here are three takeaways from the Tennessee Lady Vols’ win.

1. Rae Burrell’s red-hot start continues.

For most of last year, Rae Burrell was Rennia Davis’ backup on the wing. However, towards the end of the season, Harper decided to start them together. Well, she is now turning into the team’s best scorer, and it showed again on Thursday. Burrell led the team with 26 points and shot an amazing 6-of-7 from the 3-point line.

Beyond her elite shooting, though, she also led the team with 7 assists. Add in 2 steals, and she played a complete game. She was the reason UT shot an amazing 14-of-24 from the 3-point line and also had great ball movement with 25 assists, although Jordan Walker helped by going 2-for-3 and adding 14 points.

2. Length was too much.

A combination of red-hot shooting from the outside and length on the inside allowed the Tennessee Lady Vols to play the way Harper has been trying to get them to play. There wasn’t a lot of scoring down low, but there was a lot of dominance.

UT outrebounded the Paladins 41-28, and Tamari Key and Jaiden McCoy combined for 17 points off the bench. Harper went 13-deep in this lineup, so this was an underrated part of the game, but it’s something she’ll want to use more as the season goes on.

3. Aggressive defense continued.

Furman didn’t shoot horrendously, going 9-of-21 from the 3-point line. However, their half-court offense in the paint was disastrous, and part of that was UT’s elite defense. They only shot 32.1 percent from the field overall.

Rocky Top came away with five blocks on the day, with Key getting 2 of them. They also had 11 steals, though. Destiny Salary had 3 off the bench, and Walker and Burrell each had 2. Because of their efforts, Furman had 20 turnovers on the night, and that was the key stat.