KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee (17-10, 6-8 SEC) closes out the home portion of its regular season schedule on Thursday by welcoming Vanderbilt (6-21, 1-13 SEC) to Thompson-Boling Arena.

It’s Senior Night for two Lady Vols, as Cheridene Green and Meme Jackson will be recognized on-court prior to the game. Fans should plan to be in their seats by 6:40 p.m. to catch the festivities. Tip-off is slated for 7:02 p.m. ET on The Summitt in a contest that is being televised by the SEC Network.

After winning five of six, Tennessee has dropped back-to-back games vs. ranked foes No. 21/22 Texas A&M (79-62) and No. 13/13 South Carolina (82-67). The Lady Vols hope to bounce back vs. a Commodores club they held off in Nashville on Feb. 3, 82-65, to win their 10th straight in the series. That game, however, was closer than the score indicates, with UT outscoring VU, 29-16, in the final frame to earn the win. The Lady Vols used a 25-9 closing run to blow open a one-point game with 6:41 remaining.

Vanderbilt comes to Knoxville on an eight-game losing streak, but the Commodores have not been an easy foe to vanquish. On Sunday, VU put up a very competitive fight before eventually suffering an 86-70 loss at the hands of No. 6/6 Mississippi State.

Thursday night’s contest marks the 82nd meeting between these in-state rivals. For series history, please see page five of the game notes PDF.

BROADCAST INFORMATION

• Paul Sunderland (play-by-play) and LVFL Kara Lawson (analyst) will have the call for the ESPN2 broadcast.
• Mickey Dearstone is behind the microphone for IMG College/Lady Vol Network radio/online broadcasts for the 20th season. A link to the live audio stream can be found on each game’s Hoops Central page or the Lady Vol schedule on UTSports.com.
• Air time for games on the Lady Vol Radio Network generally occurs 30 minutes prior to tip-off.
• For UT home games, the Lady Vol Network has a low-power transmitter that makes the game available on the radio at 99.3 FM.

PROMOTIONS

• It’s Lady Vol Senior Night. Join us as we salute the careers of Cheridene Green and Meme Jackson.
• Kids 12 & younger also may pick up a wristband at the Fan HQ table on the concourse to participate in the pregame high-five tunnel. Wristbands are limited. To purchase discounted group tickets and reserve wristbands for your team, call 865-946-7000.
• Help us Spark the Summitt during introductions at the game! Download our new free light-up app, courtesy of Coca-Cola. Once downloaded, simply open your Hoops Hype app when the lights go out, and let your phone do the rest.
• Tickets are available for as low as $10 at AllVols.com.
• Free parking & shuttle service is available from UT’s Ag Campus. Shuttles begin two hours prior to tip.

UT/VU SERIES NOTES

• The Lady Vols are a perfect 33-0 in Knoxville, 29-7 vs. the Commodores in Nashville, and 10-2 at neutral sites, with those being postseason games.
• UT brings a 10-game series winning streak into Thursday night’s contest.
• Holly Warlick is 12-1 as head coach vs. Vandy, including 6-0 in Knoxville and 6-1 in Nashville.
• These squads have been to overtime on one occasion, with Tennessee seizing a 92-79 decision in Nashville on Jan. 19, 1997.
• UT has held Vandy to 63 points or fewer in seven of the last 10 meetings and to 64 or fewer in eight of the last nine games in Knoxville.
• Warlick had a hand as a player in the #4 Lady Vols’ 77-53 road victory over VU on Nov. 21, 1979.
• The senior point guard dished out a game-high 10 assists and added four points and a rebound with only one turnover in 27 minutes of action in her only career contest vs. the Commodores.

LADY VOL NOTES

• MEME’S DEVELOPMENT: Senior Meme Jackson has gone from averaging 1.0 ppg. and shooting 50 percent at the free throw line as a rookie to posting 10.6 ppg. and 83.8% at the line as a senior. She has started 74 of 111 games in her four-year career.
• LONDON RISING: Redshirt senior Cheridene Green has doubled her scoring and rebounding averages from 4.1 and 3.7 last year to 8.7 ppg. and 7.6 rpg. this season. She also went from two double-doubles last year to six in 2018-19. She has started 27 of 60 career games over two seasons.
• RENNIA KEY TO SEC WINS: Rennia Davis is averaging 19.0 ppg. and 10.7 rpg. in UT’s six SEC wins this year.
• SWISHIN’ & DISHIN’: Evina Westbrook has emerged as one of the SEC’s top point guards, averaging 15.6 ppg., 5.2 apg. and 3.7 rpg. She has 17 games with five or more assists.
• ACCURATE BIGS = SEC WINS: UT’s top three inside players have shot above 50 percent during the team’s league victories. Mimi Collins has shot 57.9%, followed by 55.0% from Cheridene Green and 50 percent from Kasiyahna Kushkituah. Only Green (50.8%) is above 50% in SEC losses.
• RE IS GOLDEN AT THE LINE: Rennia Davis is having one of the finest seasons at the free throw line of any Lady Vol in history. She currently is tied with Kara Lawson in fifth with a percentage of .884.
• STRONG ON THE BOARDS: UT has won the rebounding battle in 23 of 27 games, including 13 of 14 SEC contests (MSU won, 39-30). UT’s overall (45.0) and SEC-games-only (44.9) averages rank No. 1 in the league. That mark would rate as the seventh-best average in UT history. Tennessee also has had at least one player pull down double digits in rebounds in every SEC game this season except the Mississippi State  and South Carolina contests.
• YOUNGSTERS ON THE BALL: All three of Tennessee’s youthful primary ball handlers have recorded more assists than turnovers this season. The players and their numbers: sophomore Evina Westbrook (134/85), freshman Zaay Green (64/49) and freshman Jazmine Massengill(41/26).
• JORDY’S NAISMITH WATCH: Jordan Horston, the nation’s No. 1 guard, No. 2 overall player and a 6-foot-1 Lady Vol signee, has been named one of five finalists for 2019 Naismith High School Girls Player of the Year. She’ll play in the McDonald’s All-America Game on March 27 in Atlanta.
• TAMARI IS AN ALL-STAR: Another signee, 6-foot-5 Tamari Key, has been named to play in the 2019 Carolinas Classic (N.C. vs. S.C.) All-Star Basketball Game on March 23 in Wilmington, N.C.

LAST TIME OUT FOR THE LADY VOLS

• A combined 18 second-half points from the sophomore duo of Rennia Davis and Evina Westbrook was not enough for the Lady Vols to complete a frantic comeback against No. 13-ranked South Carolina, which notched an 82-67 win at Thompson-Boling Arena on Sunday.
• Tennessee (17-10, 6-8 SEC) cut the Gamecocks’ lead down to seven points twice in the second half despite a 16-point deficit at the half.
• In the loss, four Lady Vols recorded double-digit points on the afternoon: Davis (15), Zaay Green (12), Cheridene Green (11) and Westbrook (10). Freshman Rae Burrell added seven points from the bench, as Davis and Cheridene Green led Tennessee on the glass with nine rebounds apiece.
• The Gamecocks (20-7, 12-2 SEC) were propelled by a 28-point performance from redshirt senior guard Bianca Cuevas-Moore, who connected on 3-of-7 shots from beyond-the-arc. Three additional players tallied over 10 points for South Carolina, with junior Tyasha Harris leading the pack with a double-double of 11 points and 14 assists.

COMMODORE NOTES

• VU returned three starters and six letterwinners but lost a big chunk of its offensive production in Rachel Bell (10.9), Christa Reed (10.5), Kayla Overbeck (9.9) and Erin Whalen (7.4).
• Leading scorer Chelsie Hall (11.9) returned, as did Cierra Walker (8.7).
• Boston College transfer Mariella Fasoula, a 6-5 forward, has made an impact at 15.7 ppg. and 6.9 rpg. Walker (10.5) also scores in double figures.
• Vanderbilt struggled to a 7-24 record, including 3-13 in the SEC to tie for 11th place, in Stephanie White’s second season as head coach.
• UT took a pair of wins over the Commodores during the 2017-18 season.
• The Lady Vols won at Memorial Gym on Jan. 7, 2018, 86-73, and grabbed a 74-64 victory at Thompson-Boling Arena on Feb. 4.

VANDY’S LAST GAME

• Despite out-shooting No. 6 Mississippi State, the Vanderbilt women’s basketball team dropped its Sunday contest at Humphrey Coliseum, 86-70.
• Mariella Fasoula matched a collegiate-best with 29 points as the Athens, Greece, native was 13-of-16 from the field and 3-of-5 from the charity stripe.
• The Commodores shot 57.0 percent from the field, with the Bulldogs connecting at a clip of 49.2
• After going into the locker room trailing 38-31, the Commodores came out to net the first five points of the half, cutting the Bulldogs’ lead to two, 38-36. But Mississippi State responded with a 17-4 run to take its largest lead of the game, 56-40.

THE LAST TIME WE MET

• The Lady Vols went 17-of-20 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter to secure their third straight victory, defeating rival Vanderbilt on Feb. 3, 82-65, in Memorial Gymnasium.
• Sophomore Evina Westbrook led UT (15-7, 4-5 SEC) in scoring with 18 points, followed closely by sophomore Rennia Davis and senior Meme Jackson who had 17 apiece. Davis posted 12 rebounds to record her second straight and sixth overall double-double of the season. Freshman Meme Collins also found her way into double digits for Tennessee with 10 points, eight of which came in the fourth quarter.
• Vanderbilt (6-16, 1-8 SEC) was led by redshirt junior Mariella Fasoula who had 16 points, eight rebounds and went a perfect 6-of-6 from the free throw line. Chelsie Hall and Autumn Newby each scored 11.

LAST TIME IN KNOXVILLE

• Redshirt senior Mercedes Russell paced No. 7 Tennessee with a career-high 33 points, as the seventh-ranked Lady Volunteers pulled away from Vanderbilt in the fourth period to secure an 86-73 victory on Jan. 7, 2018, in Thompson-Boling Arena.
• Redshirt junior Cheridene Green also had a career day for the Big Orange, pouring in 17 points and grabbing five rebounds. Senior Jaime Nared chipped in 15 points, as the Lady Vols remained unbeaten through their first 15 games for the fourth time in school history.

COMING UP FOR UT AND VANDY

• The Lady Vols close out the regular season on Sunday at 2 p.m. CT (3 ET), as they face Ole Miss in Oxford, Miss. The game will be streamed on SECN+.
• Vanderbilt, meanwhile, hosts its Senior Day on Sunday, as Florida comes to Nashville for a 2 p.m. CT contest carried by the SEC Network.

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Rick Barnes Transcript

On the controversial calls and social media backlash after LSU game: 
“I’m aware of it. It was brought to my attention, and all I can tell you is that I have got trust and faith in the SEC office. I know they are going to do their due diligence and look at it. I think they will handle it the way it should be handled, and that’s really all I can say about it. I try to be as honest as I can with you guys, and with a situation like that, all I can do is tell you the protocol I have to go through and truly believe that the SEC will do their due diligence, which I have full confidence that they will.”

On how he views what it takes to be able to close out games effectively: 
“I view it as part of the game. On the road up nine at the end of a game, you are expecting the other team to make a push. There are a lot of things that can come into play there. It can be turnovers, it can be calls here or there, it can be a lot of different things that go into it. But when it got down to it, we had a lead and then gave up an offensive rebound. This time of year, you expect to be in a one-possession game every time you play. The plays that bothered me would be Jordan Bone’s intentional foul and Grant falling out of bounds and then throwing the ball back in, which you should never do, you should take the turnover right there. So, you give four points away in situations like that. You take those plays, and then at the end, we did not defend the ball the way we need to. We had a couple stops when we really had to which I thought was good. When you go back and think about them getting second shots, which they are very good at it. Throughout most of the game, we did a pretty good job of keeping a team that thrives on offensive rebounding off the glass. I don’t think it is anything that I am alarmed about. I want to see us win every game. When we don’t execute the way I think we need to, you learn from it, and we need to look at the things that we need to do to continue to get better. We know we are going to be in games like this the rest of the way; there’s no question about that. We have got to make sure we know how to handle those situations, and we have to do a better job obviously.”

On how he can help Jordan Bowden: 
“That’s a great question, and it’s up to him to do his job. We can’t put everything on certain guys every night, but we need everybody to do their job. Inconsistency is a key word with him and has been a key word throughout his whole career. When he has been at his best is when he is totally locked in on the defensive end, getting out running the lanes like he is capable of, and so I don’t have any question he is going to do that. But we need him to do it right now.”

On what he attributes his team’s assist numbers being down to and if it’s a concern: 
“It’s a concern because we have too many guys holding the ball too long, trying to think they have to make the play when in reality they don’t. Ever since we have been here and been good is when we are all moving the ball and playing together and letting the offense work for it as opposed to guys trying to dribble, dribble, dribble then shoot and that comes mostly from the guards. If they are going to dribble, then at some point in time they have to get fouled. We are probably as low as any team in the league where our guards drive the ball in and get fouled. They choose to raise up and shoot difficult jump shots, and we don’t even want them to do that. We want them to let our offense continue to work but our guards do need to get fouled more and the only way they are going to be able to do that is being more aggressive attacking the basket as opposed to just settling for jump shots.”

On if he’s been in contact with the SEC office:
“I have been in contact with them since the game a couple different times, and I appreciate them and how they’ve talked to me and what we’ve talked about. Like I said, I have full confidence that they’re going to do the right thing; I really do. They understand the situation, and they are as upset about it, as we should be. The fact is they’ll handle it, and then we have to get ready to play another game.”

On the explanation given for why you can’t call a timeout during a live ball:
“The scrums out in the middle of the floor when four, five or six guys are on the floor trying to come up with a loose ball, and all at once, the coach way down the floor calls a time out, the referee there blows his whistle not even knowing if his team has the ball. That, I think, is the real reason it was put in, and the fact of the matter is I don’t think coaches should be able to call timeout in that situation, but I do think that you should be allowed to call timeouts. I think we put referees in tough positions. I think one thing we have to do to continue to improve our game is do everything we can to help referees do a very difficult job. If I’m trying to yell at a player to call timeout or something and if I don’t get it, they hear it and they call timeout then everybody looks at them saying, ‘Well no player called it.’ Well they were expecting the guy to do it. I just don’t think the rule makes sense. At the end of the game or anytime, we should be able to call timeouts, except when there’s a scrum in the middle of the floor and don’t know who has the ball. But that’s the reason I think it was put in.”

On their on-ball coverage: 
“Again, we got away from the coverage that we were doing and the post guys came up and didn’t make coverage. But it goes back to our guard; we tell them all year long, ‘You guard the ball until you hear the coverage called.’ They’ve got to have their head on a swivel looking at it, because nowadays so many teams just slip screen they don’t even set a screen. If you start jumping from one side or the other, you start giving up lanes to the basket and the first rule of basketball is you have to guard your man. We were allowing them to get down in the lane. and then we were really wanting to shrink the floor. We did a good job for the most part, but we started spreading out at the end of the game. We have to get better there, and we have talked about that all year. We have gotten better, we just have to be more consistent.”

On the final play of the game when Grant fouled:
“Well my thought is that’s a tough way to end a basketball game. I’d hate to see it happen to anybody. People are going to say if it’s a foul early in the game it’s a foul late in the game. I could go back and point out different situations where I said, ‘If that contact was called, this contact should have been called.’ What you want is consistency. I don’t think there’s any question, in terms of officiating, officiating nationwide is trending in the right direction. In terms of people that are really involved with officiating are really trying to get it right, I do believe that. Do we have a ways to go? We do. It was a tough way to end a game and watch somebody go shoot two free throws with 0.6 on the clock.”

On the difficulty of guarding LSU’s dribble penetration:
“Again, it’s hard for anybody to guard the ball. We’ve got guys that I think are more than capable that can do that, but then you’ve got to have help from your teammates. I can tell you our post guys, a couple times, didn’t help them out the way that they needed to, but I do think it’s a real challenge for our guards to understand that they have to work hard at staying in front of the ball. Everybody tries to beat you off the dribble, that’s part of the game. It’s just going to happen. It’s not going to be perfect, but you have to win those more than you lose them because when you start getting beat off the dribble and start helping, now you’ve opened up chances for teams to get to the glass to rebound it and this and that. Some of the situations, it was some guys getting beat off the dribble when they shouldn’t have and others were when the coverage wasn’t right and they got beat that way.”

On why they’ve been fouling more the past few games:
“I can tell you this, I don’t think we’ve changed. I don’t think we’re playing any different. We talk about not fouling, so I can’t answer that question. We have not talked about starting to foul more. I guess we’d have to say that teams are trying to make us foul, which you go into a game and know they’re going to try to put fouls on Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield and maybe even a Jordan Bone. Kyle Alexander has gotten into some foul trouble, and I could defend him in a lot of ways where I don’t think he’s gotten a great whistle. Has it affected him? We’ve talked about it so it has. But as a team overall, we have not changed the way we’ve played all year long, so I don’t know how to answer that question because I know that it’s a big discrepancy. I’m scratching my head over it too to be quite honest with you.”

On if the hook and hold rule has been called consistently:
“I think that if referees do what they’re told I don’t think they’ll have a problem, I don’t. They go over there, they look and some guys look at calls they look at fouls. Again, I don’t know how it all works. But the call has to be made, and they can’t be afraid. If an ejection is warranted, you have to eject somebody, you have to. You just have to officiate the rules. I think that JD Collins, Mark Whitehead and the people that work with the officials day in and day out, that’s what they want. They want consistency, they want them to officiate the rules of the game. Now that they have the chance to go over and look at all those things, you would have to think that they can get it right. Whether they do or they don’t, who’s subject to it? I mean a rule is a rule, and they know what the rule is and now they just have to get it right. If there are three guys looking at it or two, I don’t know what the discussion is or whether it’s a flagrant one, two. I don’t know how that discussion plays out.”

On also being weary of other petty fouls that could happen in a close game:
“Lamonte Turner and Jordan Bone were starting to settle for things when they should take the ball to the basket. We had enough time to do that, and we couldn’t do that. You don’t want players coming down the floor thinking, ‘Okay, I’m just going to bring it up here and raise up for a three.’ You want to be more aggressive than that. You can’t fault Grant. You’re playing it out, you play to win. It’s just a natural reaction that’s what that is. I don’t want people to think that we’re blaming officials for anything. Like I said, the SEC will do their due diligence on what they think. We’ve got to worry about what we have to do to be the team we want to be and make the plays when we want to make them and learn from it. You know what, we’re pretty much in the same situation we were a year ago right now coming down the stretch. We just have to worry about our next game. We’re playing a team that’s had a great year, a team that’s fast, a team that has the leading scorer in the league, and another one is playing great. We’ve got to get ready to play and move on. We’ve got a lot of respect for Ole Miss and what they’re doing and the year they’ve had. That’s where our focus has to be.”

On what impresses him most about Ole Miss:
“They’re defending at a very high level. They’re going to change defenses. They like their 1-3-1 zone, and they can change different defenses out of it. They want to see how you can handle that. They play a fast-paced game. What I mean by that is there’s a lot of speed brought to their offense by two terrific guards that have played really good basketball. Kermit’s done a great job of stepping in. With Andy Kennedy, I had so much respect for Andy and what he did. I think Kermit will be the first to tell you that he was able to inherit some good players, and he’s done a terrific job with them. They’re a terrific team; they’re as good as anybody we’ll play. They’ve proven that they can play with anybody in the country.”

On the team’s maturity after a loss:
“I think these guys know that they’ll come in, we’ll look it and do what we have to do. I know this, they want to win and they know it’s not going to be easy. We just have to keep moving forward.”

On how he approaches a player who’s had an off game:
“I think you guys know me well enough. I’m going to be honest with my players. I can say all the things you just said, but I will say too that we have to control the outcome of the game. I know they’re young, I know they’re hearing a lot of stuff that has been said for the last two weeks. I don’t want them thinking about officiating and this and that, because I do know that I’ve got confidence in our officials in our league here. Are they perfect? They’re not. Are some better than others? They are. Can some handle different environments better than others? They absolutely can, but it’s no different than players. I can say the same thing about players, and he can talk about coaches probably, but the fact of the matter is we’ve got to keep our eyes focused on what we have to do as a team and how we’ve got to get better. You don’t ever stop thinking that way until the seasons over with because we can always find ways to improve, and we have to.”

On Kyle Alexander’s second half stretch:
“We’ve talked to Kyle. He’s trying to figure some of this out too, because he’s been in foul trouble. We tell him he’s got to stay aggressive. In his mind he says, ‘I’m aggressive, I seem to pick up fouls’ and I say ‘Well you’ve got to be aggressive without fouling.’ I think a guy that’s in his position often can get caught up in a lot of things that when officials make calls and maybe he’s not the guy that fouled, but it’s hard to officiate this game. I think with him, he’s just got to be aggressive. I think he’s got to be the player that we know he can be in the long run it all works out, it does. But I thought his demeanor has been really good the past two games. I thought he’s gotten back to being the aggressive player we want him to be.”

On the recent events at the Ole Miss campus:
“We were off yesterday, so we weren’t together as a team. One, I really admire and understand those young men because they made it clear that they had no intentions of disrespecting the American flag. It was all about the hate crimes and the fact that they felt like they had to demonstrate, and I admire them for that. That shouldn’t be anywhere. I think the way they’re administration handled that is terrific, and the fact that they were willing to stand up for what they believe in, what we should all believe actually, is a good thing. I don’t know if there’s anything else planned for this week down there, I don’t know. Maybe that was a weekend thing that they had. That’s all I can tell you.”

On if the blocking foul called on Grant Williams could be changed during the review:
“They cannot take that foul off, they can’t. Obviously, the foul should not have been called, but they can’t take the foul off. They can’t.”

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