Tennessee's Shekinna Stricklan celebrates with teammate Meighan Simmons after the Vols dominating 91-54 win over Kentucky. (Photo Courtesy of the University of Tennessee)

Tennessee restores order to the universe

Here’s a line that’s never been written before: Tennessee upset Kentucky in women’s basketball.

History reasserted itself Monday night, and not only did the Volunteers roll, the 91-54 rout was over early. Things started badly for the Wildcats when freshman Bria Goss picked up her second foul within the first two minutes, UT went on a 10-2 scoring spree and was 70 percent from the field. UK was hitting a dismal 10 percent and Goss didn’t return until the second half. She finished with 15 points and A’dia Mathies, the league’s best player, scored a dozen, but only two after intermission. They were the only starters in double figures.

But the night belonged to Tennessee sniper Meighan Simmons, who launched two NBA-length threes at the start, and wound up with 25, making Monday night the second straight game in which Simmons has led the Vols in scoring. Shekinna Stricklen also tallied 25 (plus seven rebounds), allowing Tennessee to avoid an unprecedented two losses to a conference team in a single season.

“Obviously, we’re thrilled, ” said Tennessee associate head coach Holly Warlick. “I thought we came out with great energy. We had confidence. We played hard. We had hustle plays. I come in here and say ‘defense and rebounds’ and I thought our defense allowed us to go to transition points. That’s what we needed. We needed a boost to our defense. It worked. It was effective. It got us great looks.” Outrebounding Kentucky 39-21 didn’t hurt, a feat Tennessee accomplished despite the fact that leading rebounder Glory Johnson missed fully half the game due to early foul troubles that included a controversial technical for striking a fallen opponent with the ball. Johnson nonetheless finished with 10 points and eight boards.

The Lady Vols also learned from their one-point defeat by the Wildcats in mid-January in Lexington. Kentucky star A'dia Mathies had hurt them in that game, so the Vols focused their defensive efforts on the junior in the rematch.

“Mathies had a lot to do with our defeat against Kentucky, so she was a focal point for us," said Warlick. "We were pretty upset at halftime that she scored the last four points going into the half. We’ve had a tendency of letting great players go off. We wanted to make sure she didn’t have that game she had against us (earlier). We were aware of her, where she was, and wanted to make sure she took tough shots. For the most part, except for that stretch at the end of the first half, we did a good job on her.”

After putting up an impressive 34 points in Kentucky's first meeting of the season with Tennessee, Mathies finished Monday's game with just 12, as well as a team-high-tying four rebounds, a team-high-tying two assists and two steals -- plus an elbow to the face that decked the Kentucky star, sending her out of the game with 9:26 to go in the second half.

“[She] took a tough flying elbow, wild play under the basket and we’re just checking to see if anything is in bad shape," said Kentucky head coach Matthew Mitchell.

"She’s being checked right now so hopefully that is not too bad and hopefully she’ll be able to bounce back. She’s a pretty tough kid, so we are certainly hopeful for the best there.”

As a team, Kentucky struggled to score in the face of Tennessee's unrelenting 40 minutes of zone, shooting just 33 percent from the field and an even worse 21.1 percent from long range. Freshman guard Bria Goss led the 'Cats with 15 points.

Mitchell conceded that his team's has been in a bit of an offensive slump, and that poor execution on that side of the ball contributed heavily to the Wildcats' collapse on Monday night.

“We have not been a great execution team on the offensive end and at [the time of Kentucky's first meeting of the season with Tennessee], we were able to not let poor offensive play or execution affect us defensively," Mitchell stated, comparing the two match-ups. " I just thought tonight, we’re obviously struggling on offense right now. It’s not going well for us, and I just thought tonight the biggest difference was we were not able to hang in there and keep it at eight or 10 where we could finally figure it out."

Warlick admitted that the Vols have also had their Jeckyll and Hyde sides this season:

“I watch them in practice and before [we ] played South Carolina, before we played Vanderbilt, we were a different team. We play hard but it seems to me we couldn’t transfer what we did in practice to the game. Tonight, this team was focused," said Warlick.

"At times we lose our focus," Warlick continued. "I don’t think we were focused at Vanderbilt, and I don’t think we were focused here against South Carolina. I think they made a conscious effort of getting themselves ready to play and it showed. You can look how we played those two games and see how we played against (Kentucky) and wonder, ‘What team is this?,’ but that’s the team we’re confident we need to see all the time and that’s the team that can be there. They’ve just got to carry over the things we do in practice to the game.”

In the end, all Monday's upset accomplished in real time was to pull Tennessee to one game behind the Wildcats in the conference loss column. As for the ultimate pecking order for the 2012 season, the only rematch would be in the SEC conference final if Kentucky holds on and wins the top seed, and Tennessee manages to remain No. 2. And that’s saying neither flops in that tournament.

“[T]hey’re ahead of us in the SEC," said Warlick. "We’ve sort of dug ourselves a hole and we’re climbing out. Kentucky’s a great basketball team. They force you to play fast. They force you to take care of the ball. I thought we did all those things tonight. We beat a very good basketball team tonight.”

Despite the league’s best crowd for the week just ended, 14,807, the scene in Knoxville was surprisingly different because Tennessee – as did all SEC home teams – honored the fight against breast cancer with pink uniforms.  Free pink or white T-shirts had been laid out on a majority of the seats for the fans, and most of them were worn, eliminating the mighty orange throng that usually accompanies Tennessee home games.

At 23-4, Kentucky still enjoys its best-ever start, and the conference regular-season title is the Wildcats' to lose. With the 'Cats are at woeful Alabama on Thursday that's not likely to happen soon. Tennessee, meanwhile, starts a Mississippi swing at eminently beatable Mississippi State, and if all plays out, the rubber match will be in the SEC Tournament championship game.

Summing Up the Weekend's SEC Results

Sunday, Feb. 12

• Vanderbilt 63 @ Georgia 76
• LSU 51 @  Alabama 46
• Ole Miss 50 @ Mississippi State 53 (OT)
• Florida 58 @ No. 25/- South Carolina 62
• Arkansas 51 @ Auburn 48

Monday, Feb. 13

• No. 7/8 Kentucky 51 @ No. 13/10 Tennessee 91

Looking Back at the Weekend's SEC Highlights

Sunday, Feb. 12

Georgia, which also had a week off, showed Vanderbilt, recent conquerors of Tennessee, that it is consistency that counts, with a 76-63 win on Sunday.

Anne Marie Armstrong scored a career-high 23 to help drop Vanderbilt out of the Top 25 conversation, just as Georgia did when the Commodores were nationally ranked earlier this season. Jasmine Hassell had 18 points and 11 rebounds and Jasmine James added 17 for Georgia, which fell to 8-4 in the league. The help is nice, but Armstrong is a consensus all-conference player and she played the whole game.

Christina Foggie had 22 points for Vanderbilt, which ended a five-game winning streak. The Commodores are 7-6.

Georgia led from wire to wire and was only threatened by 14-1 run that cut the deficit to 52-47 midway through the second half. But the ’Dawgs took off on an 11-3 run that decided it. “Everybody did a nice job,” said coach Andy Landers. “I thought, with a couple of exceptions, we did very well defensively. We drove down the court for too long and that hurt us. We gave up a couple of the threes and that hurt us. But overall, defensively, we were pretty good. We turned over a good basketball team 19 times.

“When you play hard, things tend to fall your way.”

Georgia continues a quest for another 10-win season and to win out at South Carolina on Thursday.

Lousiana State got its third straight win. Okay, it was at Alabama, winners of just one league game, but a road win is a road win.

LaSondra Barrett was the best player on the floor, scoring a game-high 21, plus 12 rebounds, as the Tigers pulled into a tie for sixth at 7-5. Barrett recorded her 16th career double-double and fourth of the season. She tied a career high with 13 free throws on 20 attempts, one attempt shy of the school record.

“[Barrett] really set the tone down the stretch again for this team,” said LSU rookie coach Nikki Caldwell. “She got her attempts at the free throw line and played really aggressive off the bounce. We want to establish paint touches and we were able to move her from high to low and set some screens for her.”

The Tigers also got a shot in the arm in the form of 37 points from their bench.

As if things were not bad enough for Alabama, with only eight players to start the game, one of them, Kyra Crosby, was ejected with 16 minutes left. The Crimson Tide shot just 26.7 percent from the field and were outrebounded, 46-37.

South Carolina stayed on the SEC rollercoaster. After besting Tennessee at Knoxville and climbing back into the Top 25, the Gamecocks lost at Arkansas and fell out of at least one national poll.

But on Sunday, South Carolina put an end to Florida’s three-game streak, with a narrow, 62-58, win at home in Columbia, in the first series sweep since joining the conference in 1992. The victory left the Gamecocks tied for third at 8-5 in conference play. Indeed, the Gamecocks are one game shy of a 20-win season, which would be a first in coach Dawn Staley’s four seasons.

Markeshia Grant scored 20, with five three-pointers. But it was all-conference contender LaKeisha Sutton’s left-handed scoop shot in the final seconds that closed it out.

Jennifer George led the Gators with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Despite the loss, the Gators are one of those teams that could fill out the 64-team bracket.

Mississippi State snapped a five-game losing streak Sunday, but just barely. In-state rival and SEC cellar-dweller Ole Miss took the Bulldogs to overtime before finally succumbing, 53-50 (OT). The Rebels, who have won just two games in conference play, looked like they were well on the way to picking up their third, leading by one, 24-23, then swelling that edge to as many as 10 on a Monique Jackson jumper with 12:45 remaining in the second half.

The home team rolled off a 9-0 run over the next seven minutes (though both teams went scoreless for nearly four minutes of that span). But the Rebels were far from finished. Danielle McCray dropped in a lay-up and Jackson added two from the penalty stripe to push the Ole Miss lead back to five with 4:35 to go.

Both teams went cold over the next two minutes, before Porsha Porter grabbed the offensive board from Marsha Alwal's miss and put it back to make it a three-point game and begin MSU's final push, with 2:29 on the clock. The two sides traded misses for yet another two minutes, when again it was Porter, laying it in to put the score at 40-41 in the visitors' favor.

With 17 seconds remaining in regulation, Porter fouled to stop the clock, but when Valencia McFarland knocked down both free throws to put Ole Miss up by three, all but the diehard faithful began to collect their belongings.

But in a scene right out of Hollywood, Porter dished off to Diamber Johnson, who drained a trey to knot the score at 43 and stop the rush to the exits. With five ticks still on the clock, Porter then picked Amber Singletary's pocket, robbing the Rebels of the chance to reply. Though her jumper at the buzzer was off the mark, Porter remained the home team hero, sending the game to extra minutes.

Those final minutes of regulation seemed to break the Rebels' spirit, as MSU led, nearly from start to finish, outscoring Ole Miss, 9-6, in overtime, as Porter once again stepped to the fore, knocking down two from the line to seal the win after the Rebels had closed within one in the final 10 seconds of the overtime period.

With a 51-48 road win at Auburn, Arkansas has now has won eight straight in conference, the best current winning streak in the league and a school record for the Razorbacks. 

Credit the Tigers, however, for keeping the game close from buzzer to buzzer. The game saw its 12th tie with 1:20 to play, thanks to a Lindsay Harris lay-up to erase a small Auburn edge. The scoreboard remained frozen nearly a full minute later, when Arkansas Junior Sarah Waktins, knocked down a jumper to make it Arkansas by two (49-47) with just 32 seconds remaining.

Fouled by Razorback senior Ashley Daniels with just five seconds left, Auburn's Tyrese Tanner knocked down the first of a pair at the line, but then Arkansas called for time, icing the shooter, and 30 off-the-game-clock seconds later, Tanner missed her second free-throw.

That put Auburn in the position of having to foul to stop the clock, but this time it was Daniels's turn at the line. Daniels showed Tanner how it was supposed to be done, netting both to set the final margin.

“I’m very proud of this team,” coach Tom Collen said.  “We came in here and won ugly but we won.”

Watkins finished with a game-high 14 points and eight rebounds.

Arkansas completes the troika of teams tied at 8-4 in conference play.  The Razorbacks will try to keep themselves a game ahead of LSU when the Tigers visit Thursday.

Current SEC Standings

Coming Up Midweek

• Tennessee @ Mississippi State

  Prediction: Tennessee has been nothing if not erratic this season, falling to No. 25 Vandy one week, only to hand No. 6 Kentucky a near-40-point loss the next. But MSU has been consistently week over the last few weeks, and if the trouble the Bulldogs had disposing of 2-11 Ole Miss last weekend is any indication, this should be a romp for the Lady Vols.

  When: Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, 9:00 p.m. EST/8:00 p.m. CST, Humphrey Coliseum, Starkville, Miss. (CSS)




• Florida @ Vanderbilt

  Prediction: Both teams badly need this win to add to their postseason resumes. The Gators stand right at the break-even mark, at 6-6 in conference play. A victory would thrust them into a tie with Vanderbilt at 7-6. But the 'Dores have been coming on strong of late, with last weekend's 76-63 loss to No. 18/15 Georgia snapping a five-game winning streak that included a victory over what was then a top-10 Tennessee team. Give the edge to the Commodores.

  When: Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, 9:00 p.m. EST, Memorial Gymnasium, Nashville, Tenn. (FSN)




• LSU @ Arkansas

  Prediction: Call this one the SEC Game of the Midweek. The Razorbacks have overcome a tepid conference start to move just half a game out of fourth place thanks to a tie-breaker that puts them behind South Carolina and Georgia, all of whom own 8-4 conference records. But the Lady Tigers have risen above adversity that saw their starting point guard knocked out of the line-up for the rest of the season, and her back-up sidelined for several games with a concussion. Their three-game winning streak is no match for the Hogs' eight-game run, but it does include a quality victory over then-unbeaten lead leader Kentucky. If forced to choose, we'd give the edge to Arkansas, with its superior firepower, but LSU's defense is nothing to sneeze at either. This could be simply too close to call.

  When: Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, 8:00 p.m. EST Bud Walton Arena, Fayetteville, Ark. (CST).




• Kentucky @ Alabama

  Prediction: Unless the Wildcats left their moxie back in Knoxville, this should be an easy 22nd win for Kentucky, and yet another bloodied nose for the Tide.

  When: Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, 7:30 p.m. EST, Coleman Coliseum, Tuscaloosa, Ala.




• Georgia @ South Carolina

  Prediction: With these two teams tied for third at 8-4 in conference action, this is a must-win for both teams, if they hope to move up the ladder should Tennessee or Kentucky stumble down the stretch. But don't expect a high-scoring shoot-out. Georgia has the better offensive output of the two, but still averages just 69.2 points per game, to Carolina's 61. The Gamecocks own the SEC's best scoring defense, holding opponents to just 49.3 points per game, while the Bulldogs give up an average of 57.8. Do the math and that gives you just four-tenths of a point difference between the two squads in scoring margin.

  When: Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, 7:00 p.m. EST, Colonial Life Arena, Columbus, S.C. (FSN)