Tennessee Lady Vols dominate No. 12 Kentucky 70-53: Three takeaways

For the second straight week, the Tennessee Lady Vols rebounded from a close Thursday home loss against a good team with a dominant Sunday victory against another good team. After a 67-61 loss to the No. 3/5 UConn Huskies, UT dominated an in-state SEC rival.

Kellie Harper’s team opened the second half on an 11-2 run and won the third quarter 22-9 to take complete control of what was a five-point game at halftime. Led by former Lady Vol and Harper teammate Kyra Elzy as head coach, UK could not overcome that in the fourth.

Ranked No. 25 in the AP Poll and just outside of the Coaches’ Poll, Rocky Top improves to 10-3 and 4-1 in SEC play on the year. Kentucky, ranked No. 12 in both polls falls to 11-4 and 4-3 in the SEC. UT will next host the Ole Miss Rebels on Thursday, and UK will host the Alabama Crimson Tide that same day. Here are three things we learned from this Tennessee Lady Vols victory.

1. Dominance in the paint continues.

Over the past few weeks, Rocky Top has truly been emerging down low. Tamari Key, a five-star in the 2019 recruiting class, has truly begun to find herself. In this game, she led the team with 19 points and also had two blocks. However, Kasiyahna Kushkituah was not to be outdone. The backup center had 11 points and four rebounds off the bench.

Beyond just scoring from the centers, though, UT dominated the boards in an insane way. They outrebounded Kentucky 56-25 and came away with 21 offensive rebounds. Rennia Davis was the biggest star here, as she had an insane 20 rebounds. Rae Burrell added seven, and Key and Jordan Walker each came away with four.

2. Defense was dominant all-around.

If a team only commits seven turnovers, they’re not likely to be held to 51 points. However, the Tennessee Lady Vols did just that to the Kentucky Wildcats on Sunday. UK was held to 18-of-63, or 28.6 percent, from the field. They were actually better from the three-point line, going 7-of-24, or 29.2 percent.

Part of this was due to our previous takeaway, which is how dominant this team is in the paint. That applies to defense as well. It’s also hard to say this was due to a bad shooting afternoon, as UK still managed to hit 10-of-13 free throws.

3. Rae Burrell and Rennia Davis stretched the floor.

Jordan Horston was one player who had a rough outing in this one, as she was 1-of-9 from the field and had four turnovers. Walker had four off the bench as well, and even Rae Burrell struggled taking care of the ball with five, which is why they had a concerning 17 turnovers.

However, Burrell and Davis were able to offset that by having a solid outside shooting afternoon. Burrell went 2-of-4 from the three-point line en route to 13 points, and Davis went 3-of-5 from beyond the arc en route to 15 points. The solid shooting plus Key’s performance is why Horston had seven assists, Walker had three and Davis had four.