There is one thing that the Tennessee Lady Volunteers are giving away “involuntarily” – Turnovers. So far, the Lady Vols have given away a total of 142 turnovers, 15.8 turnovers each game, which is way below par for an NCAA team. The average for a team at this level of competition is between 9 and 12. Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell knows how costly it is to incur one turnover after another and how it needs to be checked.

“Yeah, it’s hard because we pick up the entire court. We want to be aggressive. We want to let them bang around in practice. We want to build toughness. We don’t want to call a lot in practice because we want them to be tough, hard-nosed, blue-collar kids. And then obviously they’re used to fouling in practise and then they get in a game, and then they got to stop fouling. And so that’s a fine line of what days do you call it? When do you call it? So normally, all of pre-season we don’t call it, and then as we get into season, we call it a little bit tighter.”

“So some fouls you’re okay with, with the dumb fouls, the fouls that are so far away from the basket, the fouls that are lazy you’re just going to put two hands on people we’re not good with the fouls where you’re going to try to block someone’s shot where you didn’t need to just make them hit a contestant shot. We are still trying to limit those,” went on Caldwell, giving paramount importance to cutting down fouls in games.

Janiah Barker (2.7) and Talaysia Cooper (2.7) are on the higher end of the spectrum with turnover issues. The others, like Nya Robertson (2.0) and Zee Spearman (2.4), are also guilty of conceding. A gentle glance at their last loss against UCLA reveals that their turnovers (20) and three-point percentage (37%) really were the weaker aspects of their game.

The same goes for their opener against NC State, where Kim Caldwell’s girls committed 10 turnovers and struggled with their 3-point percentage (31%). They still managed to keep the turnovers down compared to their opponents in their next two games against Stanford (16) and Winthrop (12), which will take some of the pressure off or compensate for the erroneous 3-point shooting that Tennessee has been doing.

Making just 91 3-point shots out of 306 just shows how lopsided their precision has been. Apart from that, the team looks solid. They are beating teams with a good margin, East Tennessee State (97-47), Coppin State (88-35), Middle Tennessee (85-41), with relative ease, and with Janiah Barker and Talaysia Cooper in the mix and firing all cylinders, the Lady Vols have every right to breathe easy.

The Lady Vols Destructive Duo

Everyone is playing their part in the team dressed in orange, but two players need a special mention- Janiah Barker and Talaysia Cooper. The forward and the guard are playing quite in synch and turning into a nightmare for the opposition. Talaysia has been a consecutive 5-time high assist provider for the team, and her assist average stands at 4.7.

Cooper is also not shying away from scoring, either, and has made an average of 15.2 points. Not bad for a guard whose team is struggling with a serious turnover crisis. And she has found herself the perfect dancing partner in Janiah Barker (16.2 points, 6.1 rebounds, FT% 75) who has been integral to the squad.

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Winthrop and Middle Tennessee have had the misfortune of watching Barker at her destructive best. She scored 20 points against both and also contributed 10 and 12 rebounds, respectively.

However, these are not the only two that can stir trouble in New York; there’s a certain Nya Robertson, too, whose work ethic is getting acknowledged by the coach herself.

“Her shot selection has gotten so much better, her turnover rate has been cut down, her body has changed. She’s playing better defense, she is playing great, and she is somebody I was hard on early. I mean, really hard on in film, really hard on in practise, and she never wavered,” concluded the stern taskmaster Caldwell, giving props to the development Robertson has shown.

Nya’s 10.8 point average, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.9 assists surely attests as to why she is getting into the coach Kim Caldwell’s good books. Because nothing makes a coach happier than seeing their wards suceed and a victory against the Cardinals will just be like the icing on the cake.