NEW YORK — The Lady Vols hung with Louisville for 20 minutes but fell apart in the second half, losing to Louisville, 89-65.
No. 17 Tennessee (7-3) had nothing for the No. 16 Cardinals (12-3) on the boards and were out-rebounded by 22.
“We had a terrible display of basketball today,” Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell said. “We did a scout. It didn’t look like we did a scout. We didn’t rebound. We got beat to every 50-50 ball. They were leaps and bounds tougher than us today.”
Zee Spearman led Tennessee with 18 points and 12 rebounds, playing for 33 minutes in the loss. Talaysia Cooper added 14 points, and Mia Pauldo scored 10.
Louisville created some separation late in the first half, pulling out to a five-point lead at the break. Right out of the interval, a Tennessee run brought the game back level, but then Louisville’s full push started.
The Cardinals took their lead back in the third quarter, getting up by 11. From there, a 15-2 run created even more space and sent the Cardinals forward to a comfortable win.
“We had a couple of bad breaks, and then we crumbled,” Caldwell said. “We melted, and you can’t do that.”
Besides dominating the boards, Louisville picked up three more steals than the Lady Vols. Tennessee had success early creating turnovers but couldn’t carry that late.
By the end of the game, Tennessee was reeling and there was no possibility of a comeback. The Lady Vols couldn’t regroup to stop the bleeding.
“It kind of melted, and it kind of spread,” Caldwell said. “Then, we could never fully recover, and then it turned into a 24-point loss. Had there been 10 more minutes, it would have probably been a 50-point loss.”
Tennessee couldn’t control its own turnovers either, giving the ball up 17 times and letting Louisville earn 12 steals. The problem become more evident in the second half when the Lady Vols were chasing the game.
Spearman was a rare bright spot for Tennessee. She came up with 12 of Tennessee's 37 rebounds on a night where the Lady Vols were reeling on the glass.
Tennessee has one more non-conference game, a "buy" game Monday against Southern Indiana. From there, the Lady Vols will have a week and change off before the conference opener against Florida on Jan. 1.
The Lady Vols can take advantage of an easy ramp into the conference schedule, which starts with five unranked teams ahead of a big home game against Kentucky. Because of the challenge on the back end, Tennessee must gain momentum early.
But Tennessee hasn’t gained momentum in any of the three games against ranked opposition this season. Against an NC State team that’s now unranked, Tennessee could never pull away. The Lady Vols got blown out at UCLA and got blown out again against Louisville.
The steps forward for the Lady Vols have to come soon, but those steps seem distant after recent performances.
“This is a terrible result,” Caldwell said. “This is not a good result. I was really hoping that we would take a big step forward. I do think we’ve gotten better. It didn’t show.”