KNOXVILLE – Tennessee’s women capped off the 2019 portion of their basketball schedule Sunday with a dominating 88-38 victory over Howard at Thompson-Boling. The Lady Volunteers improved to 10-2 for the year and will begin Southeastern Conference play against Missouri on Thursday at 5 p.m. at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Here are three next-day observations from the win:
Tennessee’s Jessie Rennie (10), back right, smiles while the bench celebrates as Rennie hits a three-point basket against Howard during an NCAA college basketball game in Knoxville, Tenn., Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019. (Saul Young/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP)1. Jessie Rennie heats up: It’s not that freshman Jessie Rennie had been shooting poorly from the floor entering Sunday’s game. It’s more that she passed up a number of open looks, which the team had been on her about. Against the Bison, she didn’t avoid those looks and made four first-half 3-pointers and five total in a career-high 16-point performance. Aside from Rennie, the Lady Vols don’t really have a spot-up shooter, and as a result opponents are going to play a lot of zone defense to combat Tennessee’s size. If Rennie can combat that with outside shooting and perhaps another shooter can emerge, it would keep teams from putting five defenders in the paint and daring the Lady Vols to shoot.
2. Board domination not enough for Harper: As a process-over-results person, coach Kellie Harper wasn’t overly impressed by her team’s plus-17 rebounding margin, noting that she didn’t think “we had a lot of folks technically boxing out.” To her credit, Harper has taken a big-picture approach to her team and knows that just being more athletic than other teams won’t be enough. She has stressed details since arriving and that won’t stop, especially since the talent gap now shrinks heading into SEC play.
Tennessee’s Rae Burrell (12) attempts to score after getting past the Howard defense during an NCAA college basketball game in Knoxville, Tenn., Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019. (Saul Young/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP)3. The team is continuing to learn: Harper is learning her team. Harper’s team is learning her. It’s an ongoing process that will continue to take time, especially now that league play is set to begin and all sorts of adversity is likely to follow. What she’s learned about her on-court product is that she has a leader in Rennia Davis, who was honored Sunday for scoring her 1,000th point against Colorado State on Dec. 11. She’s learning that she has a couple of wild cards in Jordan Horston and Rae Burrell who can determine success (Burrell has averaged 19.5 points and 10.5 rebounds in her last two games). This is far from a finished product, but it appears that all the players feel better about what is being asked of them, which helps.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.