Tennessee’s Evina Westbrook shoots during Sunday’s home win against Belmont.KNOXVILLE – After an uncharacteristic first half shooting the basketball with great success from 3-point range, Tennessee’s women had a poor third quarter against Belmont.
Luckily for them, they had Evina Westbrook at the end.
The 10th-ranked Lady Volunteers’ 6-foot sophomore point guard scored 11 of her 20 points in the fourth quarter Sunday afternoon, helping the home team outscore the Bruins 25-18 in the final period of an 84-76 win in front of 8,546 at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Tennessee finished the 2018 portion of its schedule 11-1 and will begin Southeastern Conference play Thursday at Auburn – tipoff is at 7 p.m. EST – before hosting Missouri at 2 p.m. next Sunday.
Westbrook added six rebounds and seven assists, with four coming in the final period. Rennia Davis had 19 points and six rebounds, while Zaay Green and Meme Jackson chipped in 10 each, with Green adding six rebounds and five assists. Former Hamilton Heights Christian Academy standout Jazmine Massengill had seven points, five rebounds and three assists in 24 minutes off the bench.
“Obviously, my job as the point guard is to call the plays,” Westbrook said on what was working in the fourth. “I had Rae Burrell come up and set a screen every time, and it seemed to keep working. We kept running that, and I told Meme Jackson to be ready to shoot in the corner.
“You have to make sure everyone is involved and knows what they’re doing. Whatever play I called, we were in sync.”
Ellie Harmeyer led the Bruins (7-4) with 20 points and 10 rebounds, Darby Maggard had 14 points with six assists – she was matched by Jenny Roy in assists – and Maura Muensterman added 12 points. Former Boyd-Buchanan standout Maddie Wright had 10 points and six rebounds.
While Belmont shot 45 percent from the floor, the Bruins made only four 3-pointers in 20 attempts after coming into Sunday’s game having averaged 10 3-pointers per game this season.
The Lady Vols entered having made 6.3 3-pointers per contest at a 34 percent rate, but they hit nine 3s in 13 first-half attempts against Belmont – six in the first quarter alone. Shooting 53 percent from the floor and 69 percent from 3-point range led to a 51-35 advantage at halftime.
Belmont worked its way back into the game in the third quarter by driving to the basket and taking advantage of the Lady Vols overplaying on the perimeter by using backdoor cuts for easy scores. When the Bruins missed, they beat Tennessee to the boards, with five offensive rebounds leading to seven second-chance points in the period.
“You have to refocus,” Warlick said. “Go back to elementary school: Stay between the ball and the basket. Forget about what happened on the other end. You have to have short-term memory when you make a mistake. When you do something good, just remember it and do it again. I thought we worried too much on what we did on the offensive end. We didn’t sprint back, and we didn’t get in a stance (on defense).
“I have to watch the tape, but I don’t think they did anything special to get to the basket, they just drove. That is just one-on-one, and we have to get better at that.”
Tennessee shot just 3-for-19 in the third quarter, which allowed the Bruins to finish the period on a 16-2 run and trail 59-58.
The teams traded baskets early in the final period. It wasn’t until a three-point play by Westbrook on a tough drive to the basket that Tennessee started to assume control as her shot parked a 12-5 spurt for a seven-point lead. The Lady Vols’ lead was 10 points before the finish, and they were 9-for-12 on free throws down the stretch.
After shooting 50 percent in the third quarter, Belmont was only 8-for-22 in the fourth and missed all seven of its 3-point attempts.
“Well, we like to make it exciting,” Warlick said. “Our defense was solid for about 25 minutes. I thought in the third quarter we let our offense affect our defense, and we cannot do that. We missed some easy buckets, and that kind of got to us. That is going to happen and you just have to focus on the defensive end.
“I thought that down the stretch we picked it up. I told them during the timeout, ‘Defense and rebounding. We are going to win the game by our defense and rebounding.’ That proved to be on point in the fourth quarter.”
But Warlick gave the Bruins credit, too.
“Belmont is a scrappy team. They are well-coached. Anytime you have a team that shoots the 3 ball and attacks the basket, that is solid,” she said. “Our main couple of focuses: One, don’t give them a uncontested 3, because they can get 3s off. I thought we did a great job at that. Secondly, we wanted to play one-on-one and keep them in front of us and defend your player. They had 50 paint points because we stood up and let them drive straight to the basket, and we gave up too many backdoors because we were standing up.
“Those are things we are going to have to work on. I am really proud of our basketball team for sealing the deal.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.