Sunday afternoon was the cherry on top of a dreadful end to the regular season for the Lady Vols. Carrying a six-point lead into halftime against No. 5 Vanderbilt, Tennessee once again collapsed in the third quarter. The Commodores doubled up the Lady Vols in the quarter, taking control of the game with a 30-15 run. Vanderbilt would go on to win 87-77.
Tennessee finished the season with a 16-12 mark, going 8-8 in the SEC. Despite dropping six straight and nine of their last eleven, the Lady Vols are firmly in the NCAA Tournament. ESPN’s Charlie Creme has them penciled in as a No. 7 seed as things currently stand.
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Still, the feeling around the program couldn’t be much worse as the calendar turns to March. Kim Caldwell finds herself searching for answers, despite building a roster that was supposed to take a decent step forward this season. The Lady Vols were picked to finish fourth in the league this year, instead they end up sixth. It feels even worse than that though, with plenty of hot seat chatter already popping up in the rumor mill.
Now time has run out, and Caldwell — who Danny White handpicked for the job — needs a win badly.
“I think, again, you focus on your next game,” Caldwell said. “It’s go time. March is when you want to be playing your best basketball. Regardless of what our record has been, I do think that we are showing some improvement in some areas. We need to continue to put it together. We need to continue to take those lapses away. Work on that. I think I have a team full of individuals that’ll be ready to go in March.”
The Lady Vols will take on the winner of Missouri-Alabama on Thursday in Greenville.
