Harper testing lineups
KNOXVILLE — Kellie Harper spent her first preseason as Tennessee women’s basketball coach trying to figure out how she was going to set her rotations.
A week into the schedule, the plan changed with the loss of Zaay Green to a torn ACL.
Two days later the Lady Volunteers secured a big win at 16th-ranked Notre Dame, and on Thursday night they kept up the momentum with a 73-43 win over Tennessee State at Thompson-Boling Arena to remain undefeated through four games.
Make no mistake about it, though: The process of determining who will play and how much will be an ongoing one this season for Harper. Already one to experiment a lot with rotations, she has had to go back to the drawing board because with Green gone Harper is missing one of the guards she was counting on for offensive production this season. Green averaged 9.2 points per game as a freshman in 2018-19 and had a teamhigh 17 points in this season’s opening win at East Tennessee State — and not only do those points have to be replaced, so does the energy she brought to the court.
Against the Lady Tigers (1-1), nine of 10 Lady Vols who played — Tennessee was also without junior forward Jaiden McCoy, who is out for an undetermined amount of time with a hand injury — logged at least 8:42 of court time.
“We need everybody to get in and get minutes and get that confidence they need for later in the season,” said junior Rennia Davis, who followed up a career-high-tying 33-point game against Notre Dame with 12 points and a game-leading 10 rebounds.
“I think with Zaay being out, we have to try different things because we know we’re not going to have her for the rest of the season.”
Now Tennessee is left with just three true guards: sophomore Jazmine Massengill from Chattanooga’s Hamilton Heights Christian Academy and freshmen Jordan Horston and Jessie Rennie. Junior Rennia Davis and sophomore Rae Burrell is each listed as a guard/forward on the roster and is capable of handling the ball, and Harper mentioned Thursday that sixth-year forward Lou Brown could also spend time on the perimeter.
The combination of navigating life without Green on
the court and the emotional win over the Lady Fighting Irish on Monday led to a slow start against the smaller Lady Tigers, who grabbed 19 offensive rebounds in the game. Most of those came off long misses on 3-point tries as the visitors missed 25 of 30 shots behind the arc.
Tennessee State also appeared more energetic early, and while the Lady Tigers never led, they trailed only 14-10 after a quarter. Tennessee didn’t create some distance from the visitors until an 11-2 run to end the first half stretched a four-point lead to 35-24 at the break.
Perhaps the most encouraging production for Tennessee came from Burrell, who led the team with 14 points and also grabbed seven rebounds, and junior Kasiyahna Kushkituah, who had 11 and seven.
Each was part of the second-quarter run that firmly put the game in the Lady Vols’ hands. The starting unit returned to begin the second half and helped jump-start a defensive showing that limited the Lady Tigers to misses on 16 of their 17 shots in the third quarter, which allowed Harper to try all sorts of combinations in the fourth.
“Losing Zaay obviously threw a kink into things,” Harper said. “She can do so many things offensively and defensively, and she always brings energy — that’s one of the things we missed tremendously from her. Now our rotations have to be longer stretches for certain people.
“We’re still working on things and we’re trying to figure things out. We’ve seen some good play from our guards, and we’ve seen some play that can improve. We’re still working on it.”