The Lady Vols lasted only two days at the SEC women’s basketball tournament. But that was long enough to find a new nemesis.
Just what they didn’t need, right?
But how could you conclude otherwise after watching Vanderbilt dismantle Tennessee with precision and surprising ease Thursday in an 84-76 victory at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina?
Don’t let the final score fool you. The game wasn’t that close. The Commodores led by as many as 21 points before losing their edge and a huge chunk of their lead.
You had to know the history of the series to fully appreciate the magnitude of Vanderbilt’s victory under fourth-year coach Shea Ralph.
The Lady Vols began the season with an 80-10 record in the ridiculously lopsided in-state rivalry. Based on that, Vanderbilt is a better bet to beat Tennessee in football than in women’s basketball.
Former Vanderbilt football coach James Franklin, who currently wins on behalf of Penn State, established himself as a UT nemesis in his brief time in Nashville. Franklin won two of three games against Tennessee and won back-to-back in 2012 and 2013.
Ralph just went back-to-back herself against the Lady Vols and only needed 46 days to do it. Vanderbilt beat Tennessee 71-70 in January, which led to a first-half, on-air conversation at press row Thursday. The discussion centered around Vanderbilt’s failure to ever beat the Lady Vols more than once in the same season.
SEC Network analyst Nikki Fargas, a former Lady Vols player, addressed the issue. She recalled that her former Tennessee coach, Pat Summitt, stressed: “You just don’t lose to Vanderbilt.”
You couldn’t prove that by this Lady Vols team. Never mind how much it has accomplished in its first season under coach Kim Caldwell. It has made the wrong kind of history by losing to Vanderbilt twice in the same season.
Thursday’s loss was especially significant. Tennessee seemingly has no shot of serving as a first-weekend host for the NCAA Tournament after losing three of its last four games.
That doesn’t negate what the Lady Vols have achieved. Caldwell excelled in adding players from the transfer portal while implementing a drastically different system that depends on 3-point shooting, full-court pressure defense, and a 10-player rotation. The program has flourished for the most part during the transition.
The 17th-ranked Lady Vols are 22-9 and assured of maintaining their streak of never missing an NCAA Tournament. Their success has qualified Caldwell as a national coach of the year candidate.
But Vanderbilt’s consecutive victories over Tennessee tell us the best women’s basketball coach in the state right now is at Vanderbilt.
Ralph took over a program that was in much worse shape than Tennessee’s a few years ago. Her first two teams lost 25 of 32 SEC games. But in the past two seasons, the Commodores have held their own in the nation’s toughest conference, going 17-15.
Vanderbilt improved its record to 22-9 with its second win over Tennessee and is 45-19 the past two seasons. It also proved it can handle the challenges that Caldwell’s unorthodox system presents.
Despite how sloppy Vanderbilt became in the last few minutes when the game was in hand, they only committed 15 turnovers. That’s not a winning stat for Tennessee. And in Vanderbilt’s one-point, regular-season victory over UT, it committed only 12 turnovers.
Not only did the Commodores overcome Tennessee’s over-playing defense, they often capitalized with easy baskets.
Ralph learned about offense as a player and assistant coach under Geno Auriemma at Connecticut. That’s where she also learned what it takes to be a Lady Vols nemesis.
John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or [email protected]. Follow him at: twitter.com/johnadamskns.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee-Vanderbilt: Shea Ralph tops Kim Caldwell, Lady Vols again
