KNOXVILLE – In what appears to be a growing trend, Holly Warlick had no answers for a disappointing performance.
The veteran coach had just seen her Tennessee women’s basketball team fall 76-69 Thursday at home to Vanderbilt – the Commodores’ first-ever win at Thompson-Boling Arena – which dropped the Lady Volunteers to 17-11 overall and 6-9 in the Southeastern Conference, ensuring the program’s first losing season in league play.
Warlick was visibly upset in the postgame news conference, even pounding the table in the media room as she tried to fathom a team that seemingly fell apart after the first quarter.
“It’s hard,” Warlick said. “It’s hard for me because I’m so competitive, so it’s hard. You’ve got to respect this game, and to respect this game you play it as hard as you can on every possession, every time you get on the floor. (Injured senior) Lou Brown has her knee hurt. She can’t play, but she’s on the bench giving everything she’s got. So when you have the ability to play, you’ve got to play with a passion. You’ve got to play like it’s your last game.
“You’ve got to play each possession like it’s important, and if you go out and you don’t play hard, you don’t deserve to win. You don’t deserve to win the basketball game.”
Beyond the historical relevance of Thursday’s loss, Tennessee hurt its teetering chances of making the NCAA tournament field. The Lady Vols’ last two regular-season games, including that one, seemed eminently winnable against teams that entered the week with four combined wins against SEC competition.
Now a loss later, the Lady Vols play at 3 p.m. EST Sunday at Ole Miss before heading to Greenville, South Carolina, for the SEC tournament, which begins Wednesday. They are tied for ninth in the league with Arkansas, which edged them 80-79 on Jan. 21 in Knoxville. They’re a game ahead of Alabama, which beat them by 21 four days before that.
The Lady Vols have to win on the road or hope Alabama loses at Missouri to prevent being the No. 11 seed in the SEC tournament and having to open in a play-in game.
“Well, we have Ole Miss up next. We don’t need to overlook them,” senior guard Meme Jackson said. “That’s our next game, and we need to take it game by game. That’s the first thing we need to focus on.
“We need to win that game, then going into the SEC tournament we need to have the mindset to keep playing hard no matter what. But right now, we are focused on Ole Miss next.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.