Lady Vols energetic, win big in Bahamas
PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas — “Island time” might mean a little something different to the Tennessee women’s basketball team than others taking to the Bahamas for the holidays.
Coming off a 1-2 start that forced them to check their toughness, the 11th-ranked Lady Volunteers showed coach Kellie Harper something on Saturday, beating Rutgers 95-54 in the opening game of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.
Rickea Jackson scored 26 points, Jordan Horston added 12 in her return from injury after a one-game layoff, and all 15 active players for Harper’s team got on the court as Tennessee evened its record by overwhelming the Scarlet Knights (3-2).
Tennessee advances to the semifinals and will play at noon Eastern on Sunday against UCLA (4-0), a 72-65 winner over South Dakota State in the first round.
The Lady Vols were ranked fifth in the preseason, dropped their opener at No. 14 Ohio State, then had to hold off a late surge by Massachusetts to win their next game at home. They entered this event coming off Monday’s 79-67 loss to No. 12 Indiana in Knoxville — and a whole lot of practice intended to change their mindset.
“We’ve focused a lot on our offense the last several months and the execution of it, and I bet we didn’t talk about our offense at all this week,” Harper said in a postgame news conference. “We needed to emphasize some different things, we needed to focus on the energy and the little things and our defense and our rebounding, and just get them to understand who we can be has to incorporate all the toughness pieces.
“I think they got it this week, I think they understood it; now we just have to go out and execute it each and every night.”
The Lady Vols had not started 1-2 since the 1981-82 season, but they made 13 of their first 21 shots against Rutgers to lead 38-19 midway through the second quarter.
By that point, Jackson had made her first seven shots and had 17 points. The Mississippi State transfer, who led the Southeastern Conference in scoring last year at 20.3 points per game, finished 11-for-12 from the field to crack the 20-point mark for the second time in three games.
Jackson said slow starts were an obvious limitation in their two losses.
“Energy and rebounding and getting our turnovers down were a big emphasis in practice,” she said, “and I felt like we really came out with great energy and we finished how we started.”
Jasmine Powell added 12 points and eight assists, and Marta Suarez had 10 points for Tennessee.
Kaylene Smikle scored 16 to lead the Scarlet Knights, who shot 33.9% with their eight-player roster.
Tennessee outscored them 30-4 in the third quarter to push the margin to 50 points. The Lady Vols shot 53% for the game, went 12-of-25 from 3-point range, outrebounded Rutgers 47-24 and had 24 assists — “a good number,” Harper said.