Given another chance at a big win, the Tennessee women's basketball team made sure this one didn't get away - and keeping Kentucky on the line Sunday afternoon in Knoxville didn't require any heroics down the stretch.
By that point, the Lady Volunteers had a victory against a ranked rival on ice.
Tamari Key scored a career-high 19 points on 8-of-10 shooting, Rennia Davis added 15 points and a career-high 20 rebounds, and No. 25 Tennessee throttled the 12th-ranked Wildcats 70-53 in a Southeastern Conference matchup at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Tennessee (10-3, 4-1) impressed just three days after a 67-61 home loss to No. 3 Connecticut, a game the Lady Vols led by a basket with less than nine minutes to play before the undefeated Huskies took control and held off their hosts. The Lady Vols, who won by a point at LSU on Jan. 10 despite a sloppy finish, also led Georgia by 17 points in the second half on Jan. 14 in Knoxville before losing 67-66, although they cruised 82-56 at Alabama three days later.
Against Kentucky (11-4, 4-3), the Lady Vols took control in the third quarter when Key scored the first six points of the period to start an 11-1 run for a 38-23 lead. Tennessee scored the last eight points of the quarter for a 49-31 advantage entering the fourth, which started with a 9-1 run by the Lady Vols for a 26-point lead.
"We just wanted to bounce back," Key said, according to a Lady Vols release. "We played well. We had great effort against UConn, we just didn't finish out the game like we wanted to, so we really used that as our motivation today."
Tennessee's Rae Burrell scored 13 points, grabbed seven rebounds and played sterling defense on Rhyne Howard, the Bradley Central High School graduate who is the reigning SEC player of the year and was a preseason All-America pick by The Associated Press. Kasiyahna Kushkituah added 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting in 21 minutes off the bench for the Lady Vols, and Jordan Horston had seven assists.
USA Today Sports photo by Randy Sartin / Kentucky junior Rhyne Howard, a former Bradley Central standout, shoots during Sunday's game at Tennessee.Chasity Patterson led Kentucky (11-4, 4-3) with 15 points and four assists - she also had a game-high five steals - and Howard added 14 points, six below her average this season, as the junior shot 3-for-16 from the field but was 6-for-8 on free throws. Kentucky had its worst shooting and lowest scoring game of the season.
Tennessee's dominating size was the difference. The Lady Vols dominated the glass, 56-25, and hounded the Wildcats, who had won the previous three games in the series, into shooting 18-for-63 (29%). The inside dominance included 21 offensive rebounds, 19 second-chance points and a 44-18 difference in points in the paint.
Kentucky junior Jazmine Massengill, who prepped at Chattanooga's Hamilton Heights Christian Academy and played the past two seasons at Tennessee, was scoreless with one assist and a turnover in 13 minutes.
Tennessee hosts Ole Miss (7-5, 1-5) at 7 p.m. Thursday before completing a four-game homestand against Florida next Sunday.
Compiled by Marty Kirkland. Contact him at mkirkland@timesfreepress.com.