Tennessee Lady Vols lose at Aggies 80-70: Three takeaways

For the first time all year, the Tennessee Lady Vols have lost multiple games in a row. Coming off a loss at the Kentucky Wildcats on Thursday, UT fell 80-70 Sunday at Reed Arena in College Station, Texas to the Texas A&M Aggies, who are ranked ranked No. 6 in the AP Poll and No. 5 in the Coaches Poll and have now improved to 19-1 and 10-1 overall.

This was the second of five games against top 25 teams in 11 days for Kellie Harper’s team and a make-up game that was postponed twice: Dec. 31 and Feb. 7. After being tied at the end of each of the first two quarters, Rocky Top entered the fourth trailing only by two. However, A&M pulled away in the final two minutes to take control.

Ranked No. 16 in the AP Poll and No. 19 in the Coaches Poll, UT falls to 12-5 and 6-3 in the SEC. They will next visit the Mississippi State Bulldogs on Tuesday, host the South Carolina Gamecocks on Thursday and visit the Georgia Bulldogs a week from today. A&M will next host the Missouri Tigers Thursday. Here are three things we learned from the Tennessee Lady Vols’ Sunday loss.

1. Foul and three-point disparities made the difference.

Against a good team like Texas A&M, these things matter. The Lady Vols committed 21 fouls to A&M’s 11, and A&M shot 19 more free throws. Officiating can be blamed for some of it, but many of the fouls were clear. A three-point shooting foul on Rae Burrell and loose-ball foul on Rennia Davis with under 90 seconds to go turned a 70-68 game into a 75-68 game within 16 seconds.

Combine that with the three-point shooting difference, and you have your result. A&M shot 5-of-9 from the three-point line, and the Lady Vols shot 5-of-18. That efficiency difference alone proved costly, and if UT had just made a couple more of those threes, things could have been different. But it also gets to a larger issues, which is our next point.

2. There was not enough use of the length inside.

With Rennia Davis back after missing the Kentucky Wildcats game, the Tennessee Lady Vols were able to stretch the floor more. In the process, Tamari Key and Kasiyahna Kushkituah were able to be aggressive inside with 10 rebounds each, and they had 10 and eight points respectively. Altogether, UT ourebounded A&M 40-29 and had 17 offensive rebounds.

However, those two players didn’t touch the ball enough down low. Key was 4-of-8 from the field, and Kushkituah was 4-of-10. Instead, Jordan Horston took too many tough shots, going 1-of-10 with only two points. With seven assists, she should have gone to Key and Kushkituah more, even with Cierra Johnson getting four blocks. To be fair, Johnson got away with a lot of fouls too.

3. Rae Burrell and Rennia Davis continued to shine.

Although Davis did only go 1-of-7 from the three-point line, her return to the lineup was successful. She finished with 25 points and shot 10-of-19 from the field. Burrell, meanwhile, had 18 points and went 6-of-12 from the field while going 2-of-5 from the three-point line. Those two did what they were supposed to do complementing each other.

If the Tennessee Lady Vols had more touches inside, a couple more fair calls in terms of fouling and were a bit more efficient from the three-point line, this outcome may have been different. There’s not too much to get upset about from this game, but the few little things we pointed out cost them a huge chance at an upset.