KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell knew Sunday’s matchup against No. 9 Oklahoma would be a “measuring stick” to see if her Lady Vols can be in the conversation of being in the top 10 of women’s college basketball. The game served as a blueprint for where this program stands — and where it still needs to go — after the 15th-ranked Vols’ valiant comeback came up just short in an 87-86 loss. Tennessee (13-1, 1-1 SEC) dug out of a 19-point deficit to come within one point of Oklahoma (13-2, 1-1), but Sara Puckett missed a three-pointer that would have won the game.
Tennessee’s Jewel Spear, a 5-foot-10 senior guard, led the comeback with 11 points in the fourth quarter. She ended the day with a game-high 28 points on 11 of 17 shooting. Sophomore guard Talaysia Cooper wasn’t far behind with 16 points, nine steals and seven rebounds.
“We wanted to see where we were at in comparison to a top 10 team,” Caldwell said. “I think we found out we are a couple rebounds shy a little, a little bit of effort shy. We can’t continue to get out-rebounded or outworked on the glass. And we’ve got to put four quarters together and play with a sense of urgency.”
Tennessee opened SEC play with a win over Texas A&M and also owns wins over Florida State and Iowa, but Sunday was the toughest test of the campaign thus far. Some of the issues that have plagued Tennessee were amplified against the Sooners.
The Lady Vols lost the rebounding battle 42-33, let Oklahoma shoot 54 percent from the field and were never able to get out in transition. Oklahoma scored 41 points in transition as the Tennessee press defense couldn’t find its footing against the Sooners.
Missed box outs, unforced turnovers, wasting possessions — whatever it may be, the Lady Vols struggled for the first 35 minutes against Oklahoma. The final five minutes showcased how good Tennessee can be, but the game was lost long before that.
“If we play like we did the fourth quarter or the last five minutes of that game for four quarters, then we win pretty big,” Caldwell said. “And the reason we substitute the way we do is to play like that.”
The bad news for Tennessee is that the SEC schedule is only getting tougher. The good news is that most of its issues are fixable. Caldwell has said several times that she thought it may take a loss for her players to learn from their mistakes. Sunday’s game might well prove her correct. “In a one-point loss, if they’re not ready to sit there and watch the film and take accountability and say, ‘I need to fix this, because this just cost us a game,’ then there’s not a lot of hope for us,” Caldwell said. “But I’m hoping that they’ll look at the film, and they’ll take it seriously, and they’ll make a focused effort to change those things.”
Caldwell didn’t see a single player crash the boards within the first three minutes of the game, setting the tone for the loss. The offense was also stagnant in the halfcourt, something that can be attributed to a lack of off-ball movement. “We cause a lot of the problems for ourselves because we just stand and watch each other do things,” guard Samara Spencer said. “I think it’s just more so about we don’t really know what each other is going to do, so we just stand and wait for something to happen. But in all reality, it’s the movement that makes things happen.”
There were a multitude of teaching moments from the loss to Oklahoma, but there isn’t much time for improvement before No. 6 LSU makes the trip to Knoxville on Thursday.
The Lady Vols got their “measuring stick” to see where they stack up. In Caldwell’s first season at the helm of the SEC’s landmark program, the Lady Vols can leave Sunday’s game justifiably confident in their potential. The question is whether – and how quickly – they can reach it. “I’m hoping that they will understand that in big games, every possession matters,” Caldwell said of her players. “And because we have so many possessions, in some of our other games, every possession didn’t matter, and we played like that. That can’t continue to translate into the SEC.”
