Tennessee has plenty of familiarity with South Carolina.
In less than a month, the Lady Vols will face the Gamecocks for the third time. In each of the previous matchups, undefeated and top-ranked South Carolina has had the upper hand.
In these losses, Tennessee has played well, though. It first fell by 11 despite holding a lead at halftime and hanging onto a tie entering the fourth quarter. Then, the Lady Vols became the first team to lose by single-digits to the Gamecocks in their home arena all year.
TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM
Tennessee isn't satisfied with these results — nor should it be. The standard in the program was set long ago and it didn't feature moral victories.
Lady Vols guard Jewel Spear understands the previous matches can be built upon, but is focused on finishing the job this time around.
"We can't really look at the previous games," said Spear. "You can look at it as us playing them close, we definitely did, we're going to give ourselves credit, but we're not into moral victories. We want to win. This is our chance to win so I'd say its really important to get our rest and go out there and compete."
With this familiarity in play, Tennessee feels like this aspect could play into its advantage. The old adage says its hard to beat a team twice in one season — let alone three times.
Lady Vols point guard Jasmine Powell subscribes to this mindset. In her eyes, as long as Tennessee is able to keep at it for 40 minutes and stay on the gas down the stretch, it'll have a chance to win.
"It is hard to beat a team, honestly, three times — especially ours" said Powell. "We have been in the game with them... We keep cutting it down and trying to get better each time we play them. We're looking forward to tomorrow and we know if we stay locked into our game plan and score in that fourth quarter we can do something special."
MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Lady Vols down Alabama, earn spot in SEC Tournament semifinals
Sara Puckett also thinks being able to rely on the previous pair of games will be beneficial. They've knocked on the door of the upset, but now its time to enter.
Puckett says they're ready this time with the help of a few changes.
"A few tweaks, being the rebounding and what not, those things are going to be able to help us be able to finish the game because we got pretty close each time we've played them," said Puckett. "We just weren't able to finish. So now, we know exactly what we need to do to do that because we've been in that position twice now before. We're ready."
This rematch comes at a good time for Tennessee. The consensus when asking around the locker room is that this team feels like its playing its best basketball. In a sport where its important to peak at the right time, the Lady Vols feel like they're doing exactly that.
This features possibly Tennessee's best game of the season being played on Friday. In the quarterfinals, the Lady Vols throttled Alabama and ran off to a 22-point win.
"I think that was most definitely our top performance," said Spear. "It seemed more at the top because its the SEC Tournament, but I feel like we were playing really good on the offensive side. The depth showed again. And then the defensive side, we played really good team defense and scout defense."
The third meeting between the Lady Vols and Gamecocks will take place in Greenville, South Carolina at 4:30 p.m. ET.
The winner gets a spot in the SEC Championship for a second-straight year. The loser goes home to await their seeding in the NCAA Tournament.
–––––
– TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM.
– ENJOY VOLREPORT WITH A PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION.
– SUBSCRIBE TO THE VOLREPORT YOUTUBE CHANNEL.
– FOLLOW VOLREPORT ON TWITTER: @TennesseeRivals, @TMansfieldMedia, @ByNoahTaylor, @RyanTSylvia, @Dale_Dowden, @ShayneP_Media, @TylerIvens.
–––––
