AUSTIN, Texas – No. 17/17 Tennessee gave No. 7/7 Texas all it could handle Thursday night at the Moody Center, but the Longhorns scored the game’s last four points and escaped with an 80-76 victory in Southeastern Conference play.
Junior guard Ruby Whitehorn’s runner helped the Big Orange (15-4, 3-4 SEC) tie the game at 76 with 44 seconds to go, but Texas (19-2, 5-1 SEC) grabbed the lead on a Madison Booker jump shot with 27 seconds remaining and clinched the contest with a pair of free throws by Rori Harmon with three seconds left.
Tennessee was led by Whitehorn, who fired in a season-high 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting from the field. Junior forward Zee Spearman was the only other Lady Vol in double figures, chipping in 14 on 5-of-8 shooting. UT’s coaching staff was directed by assistant coach Jenna Burdette, who served as acting head coach with Kim Caldwell not making the trip after giving birth to a son, Conor Scott Caldwell, this week.
The Longhorns had four players hit double digits in points, with Booker and Taylor Jones setting the tone with 26 and 21, respectively. Aaliyah Moore and Jordan Lee chipped in 11 and 10, respectively.
Tennessee was the aggressor early, shooting 56 percent and racking up three steals and forcing Texas into five turnovers to grab a quick 5-0 start and notch leads of six, at 10-4, and 12-6 before the 4:09 media timeout behind seven points from Whitehorn. The Longhorns cut the gap to one, 14-13, with 3:50 to go and 16-15 with 1:38 left, but the Lady Vols got layups by Jewel Spear and Talaysia Cooper in the final 54 seconds to claim a 22-20 edge after one.
Texas rang up the first six points of the second stanza to build a 26-22 lead by the 8:36 mark, but Tennessee got a free throw from Kaniya Boyd and a layup from Spearman to trim the margin to 26-25 before calling a timeout with 7:56 remaining. The Lady Vols surged back in front, 27-26, on a Whitehorn jumper and 30-28 on a Spearman three-pointer and stretched their lead to six again, 38-32, by the 4:25 mark on a free throw by Boyd and consecutive triples from Tess Darby and Sara Puckett. The Longhorns, though, used an 8-0 run to wrestle back the lead, 40-38, with 1:40 on the clock, and Spearman evened it at 40 with 1:26 to go before the home team tallied the last five points to take a 45-40 advantage into the locker room.
The Big Orange came out of the intermission scrapping, getting a pair of Whitehorn jumpers, a Spear floater, a Cooper free throw and an Alyssa Latham corner three to seize back the lead, 50-47, with 6:28 left in the third. The teams traded buckets until a Spearman layup sent her team into the 3:37 media break trailing by one, 55-54. A Hollingshead free throw right after the timeout evened things up at 55, but Texas responded by building a 59-54 gap with 1:27 to go. A Samara Spencer deep ball, though, propelled her squad back into the front, 61-60, before a Jones jumper sent the Burnt Orange squad into the final frame with a 62-61 edge.
Texas pushed ahead by five, 66-61, to open the fourth quarter, but the Lady Vols would not go away. A Latham trey, a pair of Whitehorn free throws and a Whitehorn jumper flipped the script with a 7-0 run and moved Tennessee up by two, 68-66, with 5:26 remaining. Texas countered on a Jones jumper, sending the teams into the 4:37 media timeout deadlocked at 68. A Cooper fast break layup lifted her team back on top, 70-68, with 4:22 left, and then Hollingshead sank a pair of free throws with 2:06 on the clock to put her team up, 72-70, and force a Longhorn timeout. Whitehorn tied the game up twice more at 74-74 on a pair of free throws with 1:16 to go and 76-76 with her runner at the 44-second mark, but Texas answered and closed out the narrow victory
UP NEXT: The Lady Vols are back home for their next game and will face a second-straight top-10 opponent, as No. 2/2 South Carolina comes to Food City Center for a prime time Monday night match-up. The Lady Vols and Gamecocks will meet at 7 p.m. ET on Jan. 27 in a contest televised by ESPN2.
