The Tennessee Lady Vols last cut down the nets for anything when they won the 2014 SEC Tournament.
For all the unprecedented drama she and her team have endured this season, Tennessee coach Holly Warlick is making the Lady Vols’ record 34th NCAA Sweet 16 berth appear as routine as that number ought to indicate.
They’re coming off their best game of the season, a 74-65 win at Arizona State, to advance to Friday’s Sioux Falls regional game against Ohio State.
When asked Wednesday if she felt a sense of vindication after her team stumbled through a turbulent, record-setting (in a bad way) regular season, Warlick shrugged off the question.
“Not really. We’ve strived to keep moving forward. We just peaked a little late. I love the feel of this team right now. They’re learning to play together a lot more.”
The Lady Vols (21-13) couldn’t have waited to peak any later than they did. They suffered a record 12 losses in the regular season and had their first non-winning (8-8) mark in SEC play, good for their lowest SEC and NCAA tournament seeds ever (both 7).
For the first time in a long time, Tennessee earned neither an SEC regular season or tournament title, and had no players on the official all-SEC teams. Picked as high as No. 4 in preseason (including by me), they fell out of the national polls for first time since 1985.
Some of the losses were dreadful, including a last-minute collapse in late February at last-place LSU, and another bad road loss to an Alabama team that didn’t make the NCAA tournament. The losses also raised a host of unfathomable questions:
Who was this Tennessee team? What was happening inside the most illustrious program in the history of women’s college basketball? How had the Lady Vols brand that Pat Summitt built over more than three decades appear to have crumbled this way? Was this enough to undo a good start for Warlick, who posted two Elite 8 appearances and two SEC tournament titles in her first three seasons?
Whatever had been churning inside her locker room, Warlick kept a composed public persona. Her strongest comment came after a loss at Notre Dame: “One year doesn’t make me a bad coach. My concern is not whether people believe in me. It’s the kids.”
The final week of the regular season may have been the lowest point, including off the court. Warlick joined other Tennessee head coaches in a stunning press conference to respond to a Title IX lawsuit filed against the athletic department.
According to the suit, the school’s handling of sexual assault allegations was indicative of a longstanding “culture” hostile to women. Men’s and women’s coaches, clearly concerned about recruiting, denied that claim.
Warlick, who didn’t sign anybody’s daughter in the fall, took the mic from football coach Butch Jones and said she wouldn’t hesitate to have a daughter of her own attend Tennessee.
At the same time, she was getting a public earful from a former athlete whose daughter was struggling in a Lady Vols uniform. Ex-major leaguer Delino DeShields, now a minor league baseball manager, took to Twitter Warlick’s handling of sophomore Diamond DeShields, who had been coming off the bench.
He later apologized, but he wasn’t alone in wondering whether Warlick was cut out for the job she inherited four years ago when Summitt retired due to an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
Diamond DeShields, the national freshman of the year in her one season at North Carolina, was one of several Lady Vols players affected by injuries at the start of the season.
Even after she was physically healthy, her game was a mess. After a miserable 0-for-7 shooting night at Alabama, assistant coach Jolette Law took her to dinner. DeShields had been feeling tremedous pressure to perform well, and that fed on itself as the season progressed. In addition to erratic shot selection, she was committing a rash of turnovers (she has a team high of 108, or 3.1 a game).
“She just told me I need to get out of my box and just be Diamond,” DeShields said to reporters Wednesday, referring to her meeting with Law. “Ever since that night I’ve been more myself.”
The coaching staff has “kind of just allowed me to play through a lot of my mistakes and just kind of get back to playing freely.”
Against Arizona State, DeShields played brilliantly, scoring 24 points, including three big baskets in a row in a decisive run in the second half to put away the Sun Devils. She didn’t turn the ball over once, and had five rebounds and three steals.
It didn’t hurt that her father and brother, Texas Rangers outfielder Delino DeShields Jr., were in the stands watching during a spring training break in Arizona.
Warlick said the key for DeShields was to stop trying to do too much, even though she was the leading scorer (14.2 ppg) on a team averaging only 65 points a game.
“I tell Diamond to just let things come to you,” Warlick said. “She’s sharing the basketball, she’s taking good shots. She’s simplified her game, and it’s very good.”
Against Ohio State, Tennessee will be facing one of the nation’s most potent scorers in sophomore guard Kelsey Mitchell, who averages 26 points a game. She scored 45 against West Virginia, taking 31 shots.
DeShields noted that she’s acutely aware when she’s reaching the 20-shot range. More importantly, she said she better understands her role, and that’s not carrying the burden she presumed earlier in the season.
“She can shoot as many as can go in,” Warlick said, joking a little. “I’d like 100 percent, but I don’t sit there and count shots. As long as they’re great shots from everybody, I don’t care.”
While Warlick understandably wants to put behind what’s already happened, she’s undoubtedly gratified about salvaging a season that continues late into March, as Tennessee teams are used to enjoying.
“I have the privilege of seeing them play every day,” Warlick said. “I understood where we could go. It’s just taking them a little longer to get there. Am I glad we are where we are right now? Absolutely. We’re just trying to stay the course. . . .
“I want to make sure this team is prepared to represent the Lady Vols the way they should and I think they are now.”
