Tennessee Lady Vols beat Alabama to reach SEC Tournament semifinals: Takeaways
They were short-handed, hadn’t won a game away from home since Keyen Green went down with a season-ending injury and are three weeks removed from a 10-point loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide. The Tennessee Lady Vols overcame all those obstacles to advance in the SEC Tournament with a win Friday night.
Kellie Harper’s team, ranked No. 18 in the AP Poll and No. 15 in the Coaches Poll, are now in the semifinals at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., after winning this 74-59 against Kristy Curry’s No. 11 seed team. UT took control in the first quarter, going up 15-5, and never trailed all game.
With the win, Rocky Top improves to 23-7 overall and will play again Saturday night against the No. 6 seed Kentucky Wildcats, who upset the No. 2 seed LSU Tigers Friday. Alabama falls to 17-13 on the year and has been eliminated. Here are three things we learned from the Tennessee Lady Vols’ rubber match victory against the Tide.
1. Early work by the post players set the tone.
The first bucket for Rocky Top was a put-back by Alexus Dye off an offensive rebound. That set the tone for the whole game and is why they took such control in the first quarter. Dye had 14 rebounds on the night, including seven offensive boards. She also had 16 points and two blocks. In the first quarter alone, she had 10 points and five rebounds, three of which were offensive.
Not to be outdone, Tamari Key also took control in the post. She finished the game with only eight points and five rebounds, but she had five blocks. In the first quarter alone, Key had two blocks. With her defense and Dye’s play on the glass, Harper now has a formula to address her injuries and lack of depth: dominate in the post early and put the game out of reach.
2. Off-guards took control with elite shooting.
While the post game got it going, the Tennessee Lady Vols had key players shoot well from outside to maintain control. UT generally needs one of its sharpshooters, Tess Darby or Sara Puckett, to be reliable from outside along with Rae Burrell taking over. An added bonus is if Burrell is red-hot shooting the ball.
All of that was the case Friday. Darby was 2-of-5 from three en route to 12 points. Burrell, meanwhile, was 3-of-5 from three and 8-of-9 from the free throw line en route to a team-leading 21 points. Brooklynn Miles added a three off the bench, and that allowed for the offense to thrive.
3. Turnovers, no surprise, were an issue.
How many times will we have to address this issue on the year? UT did a lot of nice things on the perimeter besides Burrell and Darby shooting well. They had 17 assists, with Burrell putting up seven of them, Jordan Walker adding three and Miles registering four. Meanwhile, Kaiya Wynn had two steals.
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On the other hand, the team had 23 turnovers, and most came from the backcourt. It was by-committee too, as Burrell, Walker and Miles all had three, and Darby, Wynn and Sara Puckett all had two. It was a problem in the post too, to be fair, as Key, Dye and Karoline Striplin all had two. Simply put, the Tennessee Lady Vols can’t get rid of this problem.