Blinksportsnews247The Lady Vols basketball team suffered a 76-68 loss against South Carolina in their final regular season game.
No. 1 South Carolina (29-0, 16-0) was too strong for the Lady Vols (17-11, 10-6 SEC), despite the scoring efforts of Rickea Jackson and Jasmine Powell.
“We’ve played against a fantastic basketball team,” stated Tennessee head coach Kellie Harper. Simply put, they don’t have many flaws. They are able to protect. They are able to score. They are able to recover. They have a large group of players who can score. We were aware that it would be difficult. I felt that throughout the game, we accomplished some fantastic things.
These are three lessons learned from the defeat.
Tennessee had trouble recovering.
The fight on the glass was decisively won by South Carolina. Tennessee’s rebounding against the Gamecocks was loose throughout the contest.
Harper remarked, “They’re a great rebounding team.” “I believe we overlooked a couple execution box-outs. This time, we didn’t receive as many O boards.
It is imperative to win the board game while playing a squad like the Gamecocks, but Tennessee was unable to do it. It took more physicality from South Carolina than it did from Tennessee to bring down and compete for offensive and defensive boards.
Against South Carolina’s 57 rebounds, the Lady Vols had 41. With eight rebounds, Jackson led Tennessee, followed by Jewel Spear’s seven.
Harper stated, “Some executions were missed.” We missed some lengthy rebounds that we had. We’ll examine that again later. They look amazing on the boards, in my opinion. They won’t be kept at zero by you. It is not going to occur. It’s not ideal to have that gap, but you probably won’t even keep them low.
Fourth-quarter momentum
During the final quarter, Tennessee started to rise. The Lady Vols prevailed 20-17 in the final quarter, despite South Carolina’s victories in the first and third quarters.
Looking at the big picture, Harper stated, “I think we have grown in so many ways.” There’s a reason no one has defeated that team. They are excellent. We didn’t give up. I was pleased with our group. I believed that we were in competition. We’ve been going up, I believe. We’ve been playing some excellent, hard basketball that will help us when it comes time for tournament play.
In the last quarter, Jackson was a formidable player for the Lady Vols. With ten of his 29 points in the fourth quarter, Jackson took the lead in the game.
According to Harper, “I thought she had a great mentality throughout the game.” She did a great job managing it, even though I knew it was not an easy task. She seemed to get along well with her teammates, in my opinion. I felt she did a good job of communicating to them. I felt she had a fairly tough game. Her teammates clearly put a lot of faith in her during the game, in my opinion.
Mental toughness will be carried onto postseason
Despite being out-played by the Gamecocks, the Lady Vols continued to fight until the last minute, even when the lead became out of reach.
Mental fortitude will continue throughout the postseason
The Lady Vols fought to the very end, even after the lead seemed impossible to maintain, even though they were outplayed by the Gamecocks.
Jackson stated, “I think it speaks a lot about our team.” I’m pleased with our ability to focus on the game. I believe that we just kept fighting when other teams would have likely given up after falling behind by a significant margin. I think my only pride is in the way we handled ourselves.
Tennessee made an effort to stay in it, even when the Gamecocks went on scoring runs. Rather than giving up and making uncharacteristic mistakes, Tennessee collaborated to score points at critical junctures and pose difficulties for South Carolina’s offensive line.
Spear remarked, “I thought we stayed together.” “When we were behind by eleven, we might have easily given up. Instead, though, we got together and discussed several things that we could have changed while playing on the court. We replied, and I think we did a pretty good job at that. We lost by two or three points, I believe, but it just goes to show how good we are, especially while traveling through South Carolina.
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