Cooper steps up
TEMPE, Ariz. — Tennessee flirted with an ugly end to a disappointing season before a freshman led the Lady Vols out of trouble and on to another NCAA tournament victory.
Te’a Cooper scored 15 points on 7- for-11 shooting and Tennessee pulled away in the final six minutes to beat Wisconsin- Green Bay 59-53 Friday in the opening round of the Sioux Falls Region.
“I was really ready to play,” said Cooper, a 5-foot-8 guard. “I think I prepared well with coach Holly (Warlick) and with assistant coach Dean (Lockwood) with the scout report and watching film before the game. So I was ready and focused and I was in tune.”
The seventh-seeded Lady Vols (20-13) used a 10-0 run to take control in the final minutes after trailing much of the game. No. 10 seed Green Bay (28-5) went 6:07 without scoring after taking a 49-48 lead with 6:11 to play.
Diamond DeShields added 14 points for Tennessee, which improved to 28-1 all-time in first-round NCAA play and advanced to Sunday’s second- round contest against No. 2 seed Arizona State. DeShields scored eight points in the first quarter but was just 1-for-7 after that.
Mercedes Russell scored eight points and grabbed 13 rebounds for the Lady Vols.
Allie LeClaire scored 14 points, Kaili Lukan added 12 and Jessica Lindstrom had 11 for the Phoenix.
Green Bay, the Horizon League regular- season and tournament champion, led by eight points in the first half and five in the second, but the bigger Lady Vols finally began to exert control inside and caught the Phoenix at 40- 40 on Cooper’s driving layup with 1: 50 left in the third quarter.
After that, there were nine lead changes in a 5 1/2-minute span. Lukan’s layup gave Green Bay its final lead, 49-48, but Cooper then sank a jumper with 5:50 to go to put the Lady Vols ahead for good.
It started a 10- 0 run that put the game away for Tennessee. DeShields capped the surge with a pair of free throws that made it 58- 49 with 21 seconds to play.
“I think we knew we just had to stay composed no matter what happened,” Russell said, “and then on the defensive end, we had to really get big stops every time they came down the court. And then on the offensive side, we just had to convert and execute in our plays.”
Warlick called it one of Cooper’s best games.
“Our defense, getting up and pressuring, finally made a difference,” Warlick said. “And it started with Te’a.”
The Phoenix outrebounded Tennessee 40-38 and had a 30-22 advantage in points in the paint. But Green Bay, which relies on long- range shooting for its strength, was just 3-for-17 on 3s.
Arizona State 74, New Mexico State 52 Katie Hempen opened the game with two 3-pointers and made all six of her attempts to score 20 points, helping Arizona State run away with the win.
The No. 2 seed in the Sioux Falls Region, Arizona State (26-6) bounced back from a pair of losses to end the season with a dominating performance in the NCAA tournament. The Sun Devils shot 54 percent, made 7 of 15 from 3-point range and hounded the 15th-seeded Aggies (26-5)into one mistake after another.
Elisha Davis added 13 points and six assists for Arizona State.