KNOXVILLE — Sometimes college kids have to learn things the hard way.
In late November, the Tennessee women’s basketball team rolled into Chattanooga with a 4-0 record and a No. 4 ranking in the Associated Press poll. The Lady Vols were riding high.
They left McKenzie Arena the night before Thanksgiving with a humbling 67-63 loss to UTC and then lost at Texas four days later, and suddenly a promising season was in serious danger.
UTC Lady Mocs Moses Johnson (23) celebrates beating Tennessee Lady Vols 67-63 on Nov. 26.“We have a tremendous amount of respect obviously for UTC,” Lady Vols coach Holly Warlick said Friday in advance of her team’s NCAA tourney opener this afternoon against Boise State. “Jim Foster’s been doing this for a while, and he’s an outstanding coach. He had his team playing with no fear and still does. I think he exposes the little things coaches preach in practice. Contact on box-outs, communication, talking — those simple things.
“Same thing at Texas: We don’t communicate, don’t sprint the floor. Those two teams and those two coaches exposed our weakness early.”
Instead of letting those setbacks derail the season, the Lady Vols (27-5) learned from the losses and went on to win 11 in a row, and their only losses since then are to No. 2 Notre Dame and twice to No. 3 South Carolina. Warlick feels the lessons her team learned at UTC and Texas paved the way for the success they had the rest of the season.
“When coaches are preaching these things but you win, kids say, ‘Yeah, but we won,'” she said. “So it was a great teaching tool for us that sometimes what the coach is saying really makes a lot of sense.”
Tennessee enters the NCAA tournament as a No. 2 seed, and senior Cierra Burdick said the Lady Vols have a renewed resolve to get back to the Final Four for the first time since 2008.
“There’s no pressure, just a great opportunity,” she said. “I know myself, (Ariel Massengale) and (Isabelle Harrison) want to get this program back to the Final Four. We believe that’s where we deserve to be. Holly needs to get there as a head coach, and I think we want to get there for Pat (Summitt), who gave us the opportunity to play and put on this jersey.”
The must start against Boise State (22-10), which won the Mountain West tournament and are the No. 15 seed in the Spokane Regional.
“I think they play really, really well together,” Warlick said of the Broncos. “They spread the floor; they’ve got great 3-point shooters. The point guard is savvy; she does some really good things. She pushes the ball, she’s a great ball-handler, can shoot the 3, can penetrate, so that makes it difficult. I think they’re a very well-coached team.”
Tennessee has the advantage of playing on its home floor in front of thousands of its fans — including Summitt — which provides a level of familiarity in a tense time of the year in college basketball.
“I think it’s definitely a comfort level, but as we all know it’s the NCAA tournament,” Massengale said. “Anything can happen — that comes with being in March Madness. We can’t focus on the past; the present is what’s most important, and we have to take care of business tomorrow.”
The Lady Vols will have to take care of business without Harrison, the senior post player who was lost for the season after injuring her knee against Kentucky on Feb. 15.
“It has been difficult,” Warlick said. “You’re taking Isabelle Harrison off our team, who no question has been our All-American, and I look around the country and think, ‘What would Connecticut do without Brianna Stewart? What would South Carolina do without Tiffany Mitchell?’ And then I look at what we’ve surrounded ourselves with and we’ve got great talent in a lot of different spots. We’re really a seasoned team.”
Boise State is in the top 20 in NCAA Division I in 3-pointers per game and 3-point percentage, and the ability to hit 3s gives any team a chance if it can get hot at the right time.
“When you go against people who have great shooters, you have to limit their touches,” Burdick said. “That’s what we’ll do. … What I think is going to be key for us is defending one-on-one, because if they get past you, you start rotating your defense. We’re going to be in trouble because they’ll kick out and they’re great 3-point shooters.”
Like every team in the NCAA tournament, Boise State enters today’s game ready to face the tough challenge the Lady Vols will pose.
“We are here to compete,” Broncos coach Gordy Presnell said. “Like I said earlier, when you play in the NCAA tournament you want to play the best, and we have the opportunity to play one of the best and certainly one of the best all-time programs. We don’t have to be the best team: We just have to be the best team for 40 minutes.”
Warlick hopes the lessons learned in the two early-season losses in Chattanooga and Austin, Texas, are still fresh on the Lady Vols’ minds as they try to return to the women’s Final Four.
“Those two losses were against solid teams who are obviously in the tournament,” she said. “It’s a learning experience. Sometimes winning can mask what you need to work on or what the coaches say. We didn’t mask that. We got our butts beat.”
Contact Jim Tanner at jtanner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6478. Follow him at twitter.com/JFTanner.