Tennessee head coach Holly Warlick yells from the bench during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Stanford Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015, in Stanford, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)KNOXVILLE – Inconsistency is preventing Tennessee’s women’s basketball team from breaking out of its season-long funk.
The Lady Volunteers have lost two of their past three games, falling to Florida and Arkansas when neither team was ranked. The Arkansas game marked the first time since 1979 that Tennessee had lost to a team with a losing record.
Today 13th-ranked Tennessee (11-5) plays at No. 3 Notre Dame (16-1). The Lady Vols haven’t lost three times in a four-game span since the 2008-09 season.
“We’ve got great kids, great kids,” Tennessee coach Holly Warlick said after the 64-59 loss to the Razorbacks, who entered the game 6-10 and had beaten the Lady Vols just twice before, in 2012 and 1996.
“They’re just up and down,” added Warlick. “They play hard one game, and (then) they don’t.”
Ranked fourth at the start of the season, Tennessee has shown signs of its potential but hasn’t sustained it.
The Lady Vols’ home loss to Florida on Jan. 7 ended a three-game winning streak that included a victory at Oregon State, which was ranked seventh at the time. Tennessee trounced Auburn 79-52 on Jan. 10 with former coach Pat Summitt and about 50 former Lady Vols in the stands, then lost to the Razorbacks four days later.
After returning home from Arkansas late Thursday night, the Lady Vols held a 7 a.m. practice the next morning.
“We thought it was important while it was fresh on their minds to go back and work on the things that we did not do well,” assistant coach Kyra Elzy said.
The Lady Vols still have time to turn things around. Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw calls Tennessee “incredibly talented” and said the Lady Vols are starting to jell after dealing with injuries.
“Talent-wise they definitely have everything they need,” McGraw said. “To me, they look scary on film. So many weapons. So many different ways they can score. So many great athletes.”
A lack of offense has hindered Tennessee all year. The Lady Vols are on pace for their lowest scoring average (66.7) and field-goal percentage (.411) since Summitt took over the program in 1974.
The biggest contrast between Tennessee and Notre Dame is in 3-point shooting. Tennessee has made 23.6 percent of its 3-point attempts to rank 336th out of 344 Division I teams. Notre Dame is shooting 44.9 from 3-point range to lead the nation.
Taking care of the ball also has become a concern for the Lady Vols, who averaged 22.5 turnovers and 10.5 assists in their past two losses. Diamond DeShields averages a team-high 15.3 points per game but has totaled 20 turnovers her past three games.
“A lot of them were just me throwing the ball away,” DeShields said after the Arkansas game. “I have to understand that in order for us to win, we can’t have somebody with seven turnovers.”