The Lady Vols picked up a resilient win in Nashville as they took down rival Vanderbilt Thursday evening. Tennessee led by 12 at the half thanks to 15 points from Taber Spani and 10 points from Meighan Simmons. The Commodores tied the game at 41 with 16:09 to play before a Graves layup and a 7-0 Lady Vol run established a lead Tennessee wouldn’t relinquish on the way to an 83-75 road win. With the victory, Tennessee moved to 7-0 in SEC play and 16-3 overall. Holly Warlick’s team has won nine straight games headed into a matchup with No. 2 Notre Dame in Knoxville Monday night.

Simmons scored 23 points in the win.
Photo by Reed Carringer

Offense: Taber Spani played the best game of her career and was a factor in every phase of the game. She led all scorers with 24 points on 8-14 shooting and grabbed six rebounds. Spani has scored in double-figures six of the last seven games and when she puts up those kinds of numbers, the Lady Vols are extremely tough to beat. It’s great to see the senior guard healthy and playing well. Meighan Simmons joined Spani with another outstanding effort. She finished with 23 points and continues to thrive in Tennessee’s uptempo offense. Graves joined Simmons and Spani in double-figures with 16 points and 8 rebounds.

As a team, the Lady Vols shot 45% from the floor, 54.5% from 3, and 79.3% from the charity stripe. The Lady Vols led by as many as 15 points and never trailed in the contest.

Defense: Two areas were concerning: forcing turnovers and defensive rebounding. The Commodores had just 6 turnovers on the evening and the Lady Vols allowed Vanderbilt to grab 21 offensive rebounds, a number that is sure to frustrate the Tennessee staff. Though Vanderbilt’s leading scorer Christina Foggie scored 23 points, the Lady Vols played solid defense on one of the SEC’s premiere scorers. Foggie was just 1-9 from 3 point range and didn’t get many clean looks at the hoop. Forward Tiffany Clarke was a handful all night; she grabbed 10 rebounds to go along with 19 points. Overall, Tennessee played enough defense to sneak out a close win, but the Lady Vols need to clean up their defensive rebounding if they hope to win the SEC.

Vanderbilt shot 35.4% from the filed, 21.7% from 3, and 73.7% from the free throw line.

Up Next: No. 2 Notre Dame comes to town in a nationally televised matchup Monday night, 7 p.m. TV: ESPN2