Lady Vols ‘one play away’ in 91-90 loss to Mississippi State

Rickea Jackson hit a three-pointer to bring the game within one on Monday night. The shot fell home with one second left in double overtime, but it was too late and Mississippi State went home with a win 91-90 in Starkville.

Jackson finished the game with 28 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, two blocks and a steal. Despite beating her former team earlier in the season, the Lady Vols couldn’t get it done on Monday.

“It’s tough,” Jackson said. “No one wants to go home with a loss. We played tough. It was a long, long game, but we just have to regroup.”

Had one more play gone Tennessee’s way, the Lady Vols may have been on the winning side on Monday.

Jordan Horston fouled out before double overtime, and she played much of the latter half of the game injured. As has been the case for much of the year, the team goes as Horston goes.

Horston was only able to play 19 minutes of the 50-minute contest, finishing with eight points.

“I think her not being able to play much in the first half really hurt her rhythm for the game,” Tennessee head coach Kellie Harper said. “And then an injury for her, she couldn’t get in the flow. But you certainly still want her available going into double overtime for sure. And unfortunately, foul trouble kept her on the bench too much of tonight.”

Maybe if Horston had a couple of calls go her way, the story could be different for Tennessee.

But that didn’t happen - the Lady Vols didn’t make that one play they needed to push them over the edge.

“But at the end of the day, you’re one play away,” Harper said. “You’re one stop away. You’re one finished layup away. You’re one less turnover away from winning that game.”

This isn’t the first time Tennessee has been one play away. The Lady Vols sit at 17-9 on the season with six losses coming against teams ranked in the AP top 25 at the time. The seventh loss was in double overtime on Monday.

“It’s literally one more play, and what’s going to really hurt is when we go back and watch and we see how many mistakes we actually made and how those would have been things that we can control,” Harper said.

Thinking back most recently, Tennessee went down to the wire with LSU in Baton Rouge. Tennessee had the Tigers on the ropes but failed to keep up in the second half.

Like Mississippi State did on Monday, LSU adjusted on defense and the Lady Vols struggled to find success.

Harper struggled to find a lineup Monday that gave the Lady Vols the best chance to succeed.

“We were doing a lot of substituting trying to figure out what combinations were going to allow us to have great execution on the offensive and with our spacing, and obviously trying to find five players that could defend as well,” Harper said.

Mississippi State is Tennessee’s fifth loss by less than 10 points. Against a gauntlet of a schedule, the Lady Vols are just a couple of plays from looking at very different outcomes.

“We hung in there and gave ourselves chances,” Harper said. “It did not look good at the end of the fourth and gave ourselves a chance. And then it didn’t look good at the end of overtime, gave ourselves a chance.”

Tennessee gave itself a chance on Monday, as it had in several other games, but couldn’t get the job done. The Lady Vols now have their bye week, giving them just under a week to figure out how to find that one play.

In March, one play could be the difference between a National Championship and going home early.

“We will have to learn from this, and there’s some things that we have to do better, have to be better at,” Harper said. “Hopefully, we will, but I think that’s the important thing. You’ve got to come out of this and find a way to be motivated to get better.”