KNOXVILLE — University of Tennessee redshirt junior Talaysia Cooper scored 22 points and grabbed 14 rebounds, and the 12th-ranked Lady Volunteers rallied in the fourth quarter to beat Belmont 68-58 on Thursday night at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Cooper scored 21 points through the first three quarters on the way to her double-double performance before redshirt sophomore Kaniya Boyd and Mia Pauldo led the fourth-quarter comeback with six points apiece in the final period, when traditional national and Southeastern Conference power Tennessee (3-1) had a 22-9 scoring advantage against the Bruins (1-2) of the Missouri Valley Conference.
Janiah Barker added 11 points and Zee Spearman finished with 10 for Tennessee, which started just 3-of-28 from 3-point range before going 4-for-6 from behind the arc in the fourth.
The Lady Vols, who scored 23 points off 20 turnovers by Belmont and also grabbed 23 offensive rebounds, were playing for the fourth time in 10 days. They have won three games in a row since opening the season ranked No. 8 and losing 80-77 to North Carolina State in Greensboro on Nov. 4, but after routing East Tennessee State 97-47 last Friday, Tennessee has looked shakier while winning at UT Martin, 72-61 on Sunday, and against Belmont.
“We’re not really playing great right now, and we haven’t had a lot of practice time or space to fix it, just the way our schedule has been loaded,” Tennessee second-year head coach Kim Caldwell said in a postgame news conference. “It’s been a grind, and we haven’t had a string of more than two days of practice without a game around it since we started playing games, and so it’s good to get out of here with a win because it was touch and go at times, and we knew that’s a great team.”