NEW YORK — For the Tennessee Lady Volunteers, their escape from New York wasn’t about getting out of town Saturday afternoon with the team’s first win against a ranked opponent this season.
It was about getting away before the loss got any worse.
Louisville’s Tajianna Roberts scored 18 points, fellow sophomore guard Imari Berry had 15 points and 13 rebounds for the first double-double of her collegiate career, and the 16th-ranked Cardinals pulled away in the third quarter, then poured it on in the fourth to cruise to an 89-65 win against No. 17 Tennessee.
“Had there been 10 more minutes,” Lady Vols coach Kim Caldwell said in a postgame news conference, “it probably would have been a 50-point loss.”
It was the opening game of the Women’s Champions Classic at Barclays Center — the home of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and the WNBA’s New York Liberty — and the doubleheader finished with a second lopsided result as top-ranked Connecticut, which won its record-extending 12th NCAA Division I title last season, beat No. 11 Iowa 90-64.