KNOXVILLE – The Tennessee women’s basketball team’s first seven opponents this season had a combined record of 16-40.
While Texas didn’t enter Sunday’s matchup against the 17th-ranked Lady Volunteers with a strong résumé, the Longhorns had faced a higher level of competition than Tennessee, with three of their four losses coming against teams that have been ranked in the top 25 at some point this season.
And after a while, it showed.
In the Lady Vols’ 66-60 loss to the Longhorns, part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge and their first defeat after a 7-0 start, they shot a season-low 31% from the field and scored only 12 second-chance points despite grabbing 17 offensive rebounds.
That part itself wasn’t all that concerning – the Lady Vols had only seven second-chance points against Central Arkansas on 11 offensive rebounds – but Tennessee shot 50% from the field in that game. Against the Longhorns, Tennessee missed 50 shots and made only 11 of 24 layup attempts.
In short, games like the one against Texas will do a good job of preparing the Lady Vols for the rest of their season. But their schedule leading up to Sunday didn’t do a good job of preparing them for the Longhorns.
Not that first-year head coach Kellie Harper had a ton of say in the schedule, most of which was prepared before she took over in April.
“Yeah, I think for us and where we are, maybe if a few teams had given us a little bit more of an SEC-type look, it would’ve been a positive,” Harper said. “We knew that when we picked up the schedule when we arrived here. That’s what we were dealt with, and we’ve got to be able to play through all that.”
This game, though, was the sort that is perfect for Harper and her staff. It will provide opportunities to point out little things the team can improve on, such as the fact that Tennessee led 53-50 lead after Jordan Horston-to-Tamari Key basket with 9:25 remaining but couldn’t maintain its momentum. The Lady Vols had scored the first four points of the fourth quarter, rallying from what had been as much as a 12-point deficit in the second quarter.
However, the Longhorns went on a 10-2 run after Key scored, with the Lady Vols going nearly five minutes without a basket. With a chance to pull out what would likely be considered their best win yet under Harper (Notre Dame fell to 5-6 with an 81-57 loss Sunday at No. 4 Connecticut), Tennessee scored seven points in the final 9:25 after taking that lead.
It’s not even that the Longhorns are good; they were just better Sunday than Tennessee, which has four games remaining before opening Southeastern Conference play against Missouri on Jan. 2.
“I think the team plays like some of the same matchups in the SEC, so I think we can just take this loss and learn from it,” said senior forward Kamera Harris, who had six points and three rebounds. “I think we can use this to our advantage and just learn from it. I think it’s the first time we really faced adversity, so just need to take it and learn from it.”
Added Harper: “I don’t want them happy. I don’t want them excited that we did something positive; I want them feeling it. I want it to be a little bit of a gut-wrench. I also explained to them, because this is our first loss and the first time that we are dealing with this, I don’t deal with (losses) very well, so I didn’t need to see anybody happy in the locker room. I think they’re pretty motivated, so we’ll see.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.