Courtesy / UT Athletics
Game Recap: Women’s Basketball | February 08, 2024
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Lady Vols suffered a tough shooting night on the road Thursday, falling in SEC play to Alabama in Coleman Coliseum, 72-56.
Fifth-year seniors Rickea Jackson and Jasmine Powell were the leading scorers for Tennessee (14-8, 7-3 SEC) with 13 and nine, respectively. Fellow fifth-year Tamari Key also had a productive night, turning in nine points and a team-leading seven rebounds.
Aaliyah Nye was the top producer for Alabama (19-6, 6-4 SEC) with 23 points. Jessica Timmons was also in double figures with 14, and Loyal McQueen finished with 10.
Key won the tip, and a jumper by Jackson put Tennessee on the board first. Back-to-back buckets gave Alabama a 4-2 lead by the 7:43 mark, but Sara Puckett responded with a trey to set off an 8-2 Lady Vol run that had Tennessee on top by four at the media break. The Crimson Tide rallied back to tie the game at 13-all before Nye sank a three with 32 seconds left in the quarter, and UA closed out the first frame with a 16-14 advantage.
Nye led off the second period with another three to stretch Alabama’s lead to five. Key hit a layup on the next possession, but an 8-3 run capped by a Del’Janae Williams 3-pointer gave Alabama an eight-point cushion with 5:50 left in the half. Puckett countered with a three of her own a minute later, and Jackson and Kaiya Wynn followed it up with layups to pull UT within one. Timmons ended a three-minute Crimson Tide scoring drought with a jumper at the 1:55 mark, but Jackson once again cut it to one on the other end. Timmons scored the last points of the half from the free-throw line, hitting the first of a pair to set the halftime score at 30-28.
A fast-break layup by Nye on UA’s first possession of the second half extended the lead to four. Jackson countered with a layup, but UT then went cold from the field as the Crimson Tide outscored the Lady Vols 12-2 over a three-minute span to lead 44-32 by the midway point. Karoline Striplin ended the skid with a jumper to move UT within 10, but Nye drained her third three of the game to stretch UA’s lead to 13 with 4:14 left in the third. The Lady Vols hung within 13 into the final minute, but a three-pointer by McQueen just before the buzzer sent the game into the final stanza with Alabama up 58-42.
Puckett scored the first points of the fourth quarter with a jumper, and Powell and Key each added a pair of layups as UT rattled off 10 unanswered points to whittle Alabama’s advantage down to six and force a UA timeout with 6:47 to play. Essence Cody hit UA’s first point of the quarter from the line at the 5:38 mark, and Nye followed it with a 10-footer to extend the Crimson Tide’s lead to nine with 5:00 left in the game. Two points from Powell pulled UT back within seven with just over four minutes remaining, but Alabama closed out the contest with an 11-2 run to seal the victory.
UP NEXT: UT will close the regular season with four of its final six games in the friendly confines of Food City Center. The first of those four is a 7 p.m. ET contest on Monday vs. Arkansas. That match-up, UT’s Play4Kay “pink game,” will be televised by the SEC Network and broadcast on Lady Vol Radio Network stations and via live stream on UTSports.com.
CLOSER TO 1,000: Rickea Jackson and Tamari Key finished with 13 and nine points, respectively, vs. Alabama, drawing them nearer to milestones. Key moved to within 27 of scoring 1,000 points in her career at UT, while Jackson closed the gap to 71 from tallying 1K in her second season on Rocky Top. They can become the 49th and 50th Lady Vols to score that many points as Lady Vols.
