Harper Looks to Make Her Mark in Year 4
Another season of Lady Vols basketball is on the horizon. Are Kellie Harper and her squad ready for the challenge?
Team planes landed yesterday. Shootaround is happening as this piece is being written. Before you know it, #5 Tennessee will be opening their season against #14 Ohio State in a top-15 matchup on the road.
A younger team last year, the Lady Vols bring back plenty of experience and look to contend for an SEC Championship and more. Jordan Horston, Tamari Key, Jessie Rennie, and Jordan Walker are this year’s returning seniors. Horston returns to her hometown of Columbus with bad intentions for the Buckeyes and whoever else stands in her way. Key looks to add to her record as the all-time leading shot blocker in Lady Vol history. Walker is expected to contribute more as a shooter and playmaker alongside Horston in her final year. Last but not least, Rennie has potential be a spark off the bench if she pushes for minutes.
Other returners include Marta Suárez, who missed all of last year to injury, Tess Darby, Brooklynn Miles, Sara Puckett, Karoline Striplin, and Kaiya Wynn. Suárez may be limited tonight, but I would expect that she finds her way back to the starting lineup before long. I’m also not sure if Darby starts to open the season, but her services as a sharpshooter will come in handy regardless. Miles and Wynn will have expanded roles coming off the bench, and Striplin will need to fill in wherever she can. Depth was an issue last year, but I would expect these ladies as well as the newcomers to fix that.
Speaking of which, there’s a lot of new blood in the program. Five-star recruit Justine Pissott comes to Knoxville from New Jersey, while Edie Darby joins her sister Tess on Rocky Top after finishing her prep career at Greenfield High School out in West Tennessee. Darby is a redshirt candidate, while Pissott is expected to immediately push for significant minutes and may even find herself in the starting lineup. Tennessee was also in the market for a few transfers, and I feel like they hit a grand slam with their choices. This group is headlined by Rickea Jackson, a Detroit native that left Mississippi State to play for Coach Harper. Jasmine Powell from Minnesota and Jillian Hollingshead from Georgia round out an experienced trio that will help bring along the younger gals in conference play and beyond. Jasmine Franklin waited a couple years to follow Coach Harper from Missouri State, but reunites with her this year as a grad transfer. Altogether, this squad has the ideal blend of talented youth and seasoned vets that can show up and show out when it counts. Tonight’s game will tell us if Jackson and Powell come in and start right away, or if it’ll take a few games for everyone to gel. Either way, this team has to start clicking in short order, as they travel to the Bahamas in a few weeks for the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis.
Much like their men’s counterparts, the SEC had quite the coaches’ carousel during the offseason. I was surprised to see Joni Taylor take the Texas A&M job following Gary Blair’s retirement. She’d done well as the interim coach at Georgia, but Katie Abramson-Henderson from UCF isn’t exactly a bad decision either. Kelly Rae Finley had her interim tag removed at Florida, as did Doug Novak at Mississippi State. Add that to a conference that has a rising star in Yolett McPhee-McCuin at Ole Miss a National Championship winner in Kim Mulkey at LSU, and a legend in Dawn Staley at South Carolina, and things could be very intriguing come late February. Staley and the Gamecocks are the defending champs, but a repeat won’t come easy this year. Elsewhere, C. Vivian Stringer retired a few months ago following an illustrious career at Rutgers, and Coquese Washington will have her hands full when the Scarlet Knights face off against the Lady Vols in the Bahamas.
Tara VanDerveer, who passed Pat Summitt as the all-time leading winner in women’s college basketball in 2020, will host Kellie Harper and Co. when UT travels out to Stanford a week before Christmas. A month later, the Lady Vols will welcome Geno Auriemma and his UConn Huskies at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville. Those games make up for an otherwise questionable non-conference schedule, but nothing will come easy for Tennessee this year. Defensively, this team has more length and size than just about anyone in the country, but rebounding and aggressiveness in the passing lanes will make or break them. As for the offense, you could mistake last year’s team for Rick Barnes’ Vols in the halfcourt. They struggled to score consistently and relied on transition offense way too much. In addition, handling full-court pressure was another concern. It’s my understanding that Powell, Jackson, and Pissott will help space the floor and allow Tamari Key do the dirty work in the post. Free throw shooting needs to improve as well, and someone else will have to help Tess Darby from long range.
Fact of the matter is that this is a prove-it year for Kellie Harper. Danny White has more than likely been caught up to speed on how sacred that position is, and I’m not saying that Harper is going to be cut loose any time soon. However, most young players these days recognize South Carolina and UConn as the best of the best, not Tennessee. The Lady Vol brand still holds weight among top recruits, as evidenced by the signings of Horston, Puckett, Pissott, and others during the past few years. But this team needs to build their own legacy instead of resting upon the laurels of yesteryear. Holly Warlick handled herself with class and did well in holding the ship steady following Coach Summitt’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, retirement, and passing. That said, Tennessee was replaced by Auriemma’s Huskies and Staley’s Gamecocks as the gold standard of women’s college basketball on her watch. Kellie Harper is no stranger to Warlick’s plight, as she was hired at NC State following the death of Wolfpack icon Kay Yow in 2009, but fired four years later in 2013 after going just 70-64. If the Lady Vol legacy is to be restored to its former glory, and if this team wants to cut some nets down, that journey starts tonight. The Ohio State game has to be more than a business trip, a homecoming for Jordan Horston, and a season opener. As an addendum, no one in this fanbase should be asking for Harper to be what Summitt was, just as we shouldn’t have with Coach Warlick. It’s a new day in college basketball and athletics as a whole, and the feelings around this program need to reflect that. Instead, this has to be the beginning of a new era in Lady Vol history. Tennessee should always be in the conversation regarding women’s college basketball powerhouses, and an opportunity to make a statement lies in front of them.