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okstateguy
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 Posted: 01/31/23 10:58 pm ::: Harper and Tennessee |
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| This team will likely enter the SEC tournament with 10-11 losses and no wins vs ranked opponents. This team had everything: versatility, playmakers, rebounders, athleticism, crazy depth. Yet they have struggled to use any of those things to their advantage. She's won at a lower % than Holly, and has had at least 8 losses in every season of her tenure. With all the talent and depth, how much time, realistically, will Tennessee give Harper before they move on to greener pastures? Beyond that, does Tennessee even have the command left to pull a coach better than Kellie?
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NoDakSt
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| Posted: 02/01/23 2:42 am ::: |
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| Also of question is her ability to recruit high school kids and, tho she has attracted players via the transfer portal, she doesn’t seem effective in melding them together.
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snlMINAJ
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| Posted: 02/01/23 6:22 am ::: |
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| isn't the loss of their Center a big deal? i don't watch or follow UT but it was weird that she wasn't even mentioned during the UConn-UT game.
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pilight
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| Posted: 02/01/23 8:19 am ::: |
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| NoDakSt wrote: |
| Also of question is her ability to recruit high school kids and, tho she has attracted players via the transfer portal, she doesn’t seem effective in melding them together. |
IOW she's having the same problems she had at NC State. Maybe she's not cut out for coaching a P5 team.
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singinerd54
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thardy929
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| Posted: 02/01/23 10:51 am ::: |
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| singinerd54 wrote: |
Harper and the team are both plagued by playing a really, really challenging schedule, when they shouldn't have booked so tough.
Their losses (with NET ranking) are to:
UConn (2)
LSU (3)
Stanford (4)
Indiana (5)
Ohio St (13)
Virginia Tech (22)
UCLA (25)
Gonzaga (38)
No bad losses, and those first five have been five of the best ten teams in the country all year. The other two big underachievers (according to preseason rankings), Texas and Louisville, have losses to multiple teams ranked lower in NET.
Has the season been (a bit) disappointing? Yeah. Is it as bad as their record suggests? I don't think so.
(As an aside, and to continue my semi-rant about NET, not sure how Texas' resume is worthy of being ranked 10.) |
I agree with all of this. And unfortunately the schedule has been unevenly-weighted, where the opportunities for "easier" quality wins came in the first half of the season while playing with an unhealthy Tamari Key (not knowing she had blood clots in her lungs) and still figuring out the chemistry with 6 new players. The only opportunities for a good win in the second half of the season are against number 1, 2, and 3 in the NET, which would be a tall order for any team. I suppose the best hope for now is a potential rematch with LSU in the SEC tournament semifinals.
I think the concerns about high school recruiting are valid. But I also think the product on the floor has gotten better each year under her tenure and most metrics back that up (e.g., the team's ranking for offensive and defensive ratings per Her Hoop Stats have improved each season, with the exception of a slight dip on defense this year, which makes sense with Key's injury).
I'm not sure if Kellie can elevate this program back to consistently competing for Final Fours but I think she's earned more time than a lot of the fan base is giving her right now.
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okstateguy
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tfan
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okstateguy
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| Posted: 02/01/23 12:32 pm ::: |
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And 20-2 UCONN has played the hardest, and has won more while dealing with much larger, and more chronic, losses in terms of injuries than Tennessee. I can't imagine that knowledge sits well with a vast majority of Tennessee fans.
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summertime blues
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summertime blues
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myrtle
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| Posted: 02/01/23 4:44 pm ::: |
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I'm rooting for Kellie to succeed.
I haven't seen very many UTenn games this year so these observations may be off-base.
In the LSU game I thought her time management was really really bad, particularly in the 4th qtr when LSU went on its run. I was surprised also that essentially they let Morris beat them. There was no adjustment to slow her down. When you let a player like that have her career best game against you, it's IMO a coaching issue. They do still appear to be a bunch of individuals rather than a team which is some combination of coaching and player issues. I think they under-value their three shooters - there's a couple of them who are deadly if given the chance, but they don't seem to get set up or see the ball when they are open. That said, they have a rebounding problem which I think would definitely have been helped by Key's presence...as well as her defensive presence to prevent some of those layups.
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FrozenLVFan
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summertime blues
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| Posted: 02/01/23 6:52 pm ::: |
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| myrtle wrote: |
I'm rooting for Kellie to succeed.
I haven't seen very many UTenn games this year so these observations may be off-base.
In the LSU game I thought her time management was really really bad, particularly in the 4th qtr when LSU went on its run. I was surprised also that essentially they let Morris beat them. There was no adjustment to slow her down. When you let a player like that have her career best game against you, it's IMO a coaching issue. They do still appear to be a bunch of individuals rather than a team which is some combination of coaching and player issues. I think they under-value their three shooters - there's a couple of them who are deadly if given the chance, but they don't seem to get set up or see the ball when they are open. That said, they have a rebounding problem which I think would definitely have been helped by Key's presence...as well as her defensive presence to prevent some of those layups. |
It was either shut her down or shut Reese down. They did a better job on Reese, but with limited resources (i.e. minus Key) they came up a little short against both of them. They'll have to regroup and see what they can come up with for the conference tournament.
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thardy929
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| Posted: 02/01/23 7:14 pm ::: |
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| myrtle wrote: |
I'm rooting for Kellie to succeed.
I haven't seen very many UTenn games this year so these observations may be off-base.
In the LSU game I thought her time management was really really bad, particularly in the 4th qtr when LSU went on its run. I was surprised also that essentially they let Morris beat them. There was no adjustment to slow her down. When you let a player like that have her career best game against you, it's IMO a coaching issue. They do still appear to be a bunch of individuals rather than a team which is some combination of coaching and player issues. I think they under-value their three shooters - there's a couple of them who are deadly if given the chance, but they don't seem to get set up or see the ball when they are open. That said, they have a rebounding problem which I think would definitely have been helped by Key's presence...as well as her defensive presence to prevent some of those layups. |
I've watched all but one game this season, and I don't think you're off-base. Something like the Morris situation happens all too often; it seems like there's a defensive game-plan - e.g., shut Reese and maybe Flau'jae down and make someone else beat you - but then no adjustment when in fact, someone else is beating you quite badly. I don't know any statistics on this, but I would bet that the number of players who've had career highs in scoring against the Lady Vols the last few years would be...far too many.
It seems like Kellie has done more to recruit 3-point shooters, but hasn't figured out how to use them effectively. Darby, for example, is something like 14-30 on 3's against ranked teams this year. And most of those are with a defender's hand in her face trying to make something happen 1:1. She should be getting so many more looks (and plays to get her open)!
I do think there's been progress on them looking more like a team, though they didn't show it against LSU. For example, the team's A/TO ratio is positive for the first time since 2016-17.
The rebounding hasn't been bad; I think they just ran into an even better rebounding team in LSU. The defense is tough. The plan the last 3 years was clearly to let Key be the anchor and the perimeter defenders knew they could rely on her. Tenn's block % was near tops in the NCAA the last 3 years but without Key, is pretty average. And now the perimeter defenders have been exposed as poor 1:1 defenders, and the coaching staff doesn't seem to have figured out a team defense that will work without Key.
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PickledGinger
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tfan
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| Posted: 02/02/23 3:13 am ::: |
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| okstateguy wrote: |
And 20-2 UCONN has played the hardest, and has won more while dealing with much larger, and more chronic, losses in terms of injuries than Tennessee. I can't imagine that knowledge sits well with a vast majority of Tennessee fans. |
UConn has 7 Americans on their roster. All were McDonalds All-Americans. 5 played for USA Basketball. 2 were #1 out of high school, and they have a #4 and #5. That used to be good enough. But now they have six great foreign players as well. "You're not doing as well as UConn" is a meaningless statement.
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summertime blues
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| Posted: 02/02/23 1:02 pm ::: |
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This. Is. Not. A. UConn. Thread.
Woujd y'all kindly keep from injecting UConn into every damn thread on this board?
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ArtBest23
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| Posted: 02/02/23 6:47 pm ::: |
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| summertime blues wrote: |
This. Is. Not. A. UConn. Thread.
Woujd y'all kindly keep from injecting UConn into every damn thread on this board? |
Well, I appreciate your general point and might normally agree, but not in this instance. This thread seems to have been inspired by the Tenn-Uconn game last week, and given the endless hours of media hype about the supposed equality and ongoing "rivalry" between the two schools, I'd say the obvious comparison had already been interjected into the discussion of Tenn's future. Seems like a fair issue for discussion in this thread to me.
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okstateguy
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| Posted: 02/02/23 11:01 pm ::: |
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| tfan wrote: |
| okstateguy wrote: |
And 20-2 UCONN has played the hardest, and has won more while dealing with much larger, and more chronic, losses in terms of injuries than Tennessee. I can't imagine that knowledge sits well with a vast majority of Tennessee fans. |
UConn has 7 Americans on their roster. All were McDonalds All-Americans. 5 played for USA Basketball. 2 were #1 out of high school, and they have a #4 and #5. That used to be good enough. But now they have six great foreign players as well. "You're not doing as well as UConn" is a meaningless statement. |
You introduced SoS as a reason for the record, and several others have mentioned the Key injury as another explanation. There's one school that has played a tougher schedule. They lost their All-American PG for the year, another All-American guard for most of the year, their starting center for several games, along with several others throughout the year. Yet they have still managed to win with a tougher schedule. Not doing as well as UCONN has nothing to do with the argument I was making. Letting the SoS and loss of Key become the convenient excuse for what is really a par for the course season for Harper is the idea that I was challenging. UCONN just happens to be the other team in a very similar situation to Tennessee in terms of SoS and injuries.
Maybe I should have made that more clear in the original post.
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ucbart
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| Posted: 02/04/23 11:22 am ::: |
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Who is the last truly 'elite' guard that has gone to Tennessee and flourished? That place has always bee wing and post player University and unfortunately, the players that Tennessee used to get, are all wearing South Carolina garnet. For the better part of 15 years they've had mediocre guard play at best. For whatever reason, guards just don't go there.
IMO, a lot of the problem for Kelly is that she's amassed a lot of talent, none of it can run the show at an elite level. She will continue to recruit well and she does a great job with the transfer portal, but until she gets a Bueckers, Clark, Miles, Rice, or Sabrina like 5-star stu in the backcourt, it's probably going to be this was in the conference. She can't out recruit wings and posts from Dawn and Kim, which at Tennessee, used to be the other way around.
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thardy929
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| Posted: 02/04/23 12:02 pm ::: |
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| ucbart wrote: |
Who is the last truly 'elite' guard that has gone to Tennessee and flourished? That place has always bee wing and post player University and unfortunately, the players that Tennessee used to get, are all wearing South Carolina garnet. For the better part of 15 years they've had mediocre guard play at best. For whatever reason, guards just don't go there.
IMO, a lot of the problem for Kelly is that she's amassed a lot of talent, none of it can run the show at an elite level. She will continue to recruit well and she does a great job with the transfer portal, but until she gets a Bueckers, Clark, Miles, Rice, or Sabrina like 5-star stu in the backcourt, it's probably going to be this was in the conference. She can't out recruit wings and posts from Dawn and Kim, which at Tennessee, used to be the other way around. |
I think you're probably right. Kellie did just get a commitment from ASGR's current #1 overall player in the 2027 class, 5'11" point guard Finley Chastain. Maybe she can be that elite guard we've been lacking, but that's still a long ways away.
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Howee
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| Posted: 02/04/23 4:14 pm ::: |
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| ucbart wrote: |
| Who is the last truly 'elite' guard that has gone to Tennessee and flourished? |
Hmmm. Meghan Simmons? (whatever became of her?) Kara Lawson? Ariel Massengale? Michelle Marciniak? These are all 'old ladies' by now. Point taken.
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calbearman76
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| Posted: 02/04/23 10:25 pm ::: |
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The biggest problem Kellie Harper has is being compared to Pat Summitt. Compare her to Holly Warlick and she looks pretty good. Warlick made the Elite 8 or better in her first 4 years but in her last 3 years she didn't make it out of the first weekend.
Harper has stopped the bleeding from the program but it remains to be seen if she can return them to a consistent second weekend or better team. Right now it appears she is headed for a second round road game unless she can beat South Carolina. That is pretty good for most programs but not good enough for Lady Vols fans.
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That might be as valid as comparing her and her body of work to UConn - not so much. For a better analogy, try comparing Taurasi's record coaching UConn for 4 seasons after Geno's gone. 