NCAAW: Will Janiah Barker be the difference maker in UT vs. UCLA?

Tennessee opened their season with a last-minute loss to then-No. 9 NC State, knocking the Lady Vols from their preseason No. 8 ranking. Since then, now-No. 14 Tennessee has won five-straight games, albeit not against top opponents nor in particularly impressive fashion.

Sunday, therefore, marks just the second time that head coach Kim Caldwell’s system, now in its second season, will get stress tested, as Tennessee travels to Los Angeles to take on still-No. 3 UCLA at 4:30 p.m. ET (FS1).

The Bruins are in middle of navigating their first bout of adversity, following up a mostly uninspiring loss to No. 4 Texas with a dominating win over Duke at the Players Era Championship. In the victory, UCLA was without star senior center Lauren Betts, and seemed no worse for the wear. The Bruins blitzed the Blue Devils for 89 points, with a breakout 23-point performance from senior guard Gabriela Jaquez leading four other double-figure scorers.

Betts, who injured her left arm in the loss to Texas, reportedly will be a game-time decision.

Is Tennessee ready for their West Coast test?

With or without Betts, the matchup with the Bruins will serve as a barometer for the Lady Vols, as Caldwell said before the trip:

It’s gonna be a big trip. We’re gonna have to grow up real fast…And we have to mature. We have to grow.

And I think that that, again, is a measuring stick, and that’s why we’re playing the schedule is to see where we’re at and how we need to improve. If we’re not where we are at, where we’re gonna finish, we’re gonna get better than how we’re playing right now. They’re a pretty polished team. They’re a pretty veteran team. So we need to be ready.

So far, the statistics suggest that Caldwell’s own team doesn’t quite have the polish of last season’s squad.

Offensively, the Lady Vols are again firing away from 3, taking a nation-leading 34.7 triples per game. They’re also still hounding the offensive glass, ranking 10th in the nation with almost 18 offensive boards per game. But they’re taking about five fewer overall shots per game and scoring about five fewer points per game compared to last season, marks that could be cause from concern considering last season’s averages are inclusive of the tougher SEC schedule.

Tennessee’s offense is founded on volume over efficiency. They don’t care if they miss a lot of shots because they are going to take so many more. But if their overall shot volume is not as overwhelming, shooting efficiently becomes more important. So far, the Lady Vols are shooting 28.4 percent from 3 as a team. They’re also not earning easy, extra points at the line, shooting 68.4 percent on their 19.5 free throw attempts per game.

Caldwell, however, has expressed encouragement about Tennessee’s offensive process, trusting that, once her team’s shots begin to fall, players will further commit to moving the ball to go from good to great shots. She likewise believes her players are better shooters that their current percentages indicate. Thus far, only senior guard Nya Robertson, who transferred from SMU, is shooting above 35 percent from 3. She ascended to that mark after hitting a single-game record 10 triples in the Lady Vols’ most recent win over Coppin State.

Defense, however, can help unlock the optimal version of Tennessee’s offense. Once again, aggression is the Lady Vols’ defensive identity, evidenced by team’s 14.3 steals per game, the 12th best mark in the nation and three more than last season’s average. Caldwell has been satisfied with how her team has begun to execute defensively, explaining:

I think our press defense looks the way it should. We’re flying around. We’re getting steals. Our back looks better. It’s not perfect, but it’s never going to be perfect. But I think the energy and effort is different than it has been in games. I think we’re moving better.

Junior guard Talaysia Cooper leads the Lady Vols with 3.8 steals per game, with senior forward Janiah Barker swiping 1.7 per game.

Can Janiah Barker lead Tennessee to the revenge win over UCLA?

Sunday’s game, of course, comes with a bit extra for Barker, who transferred to Tennessee after spending one season at UCLA, when she was named Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year.

At Tennessee, Barker is only Lady Vol who has started all six games, playing 22 minutes per game in Caldwell’s sub-heavy system. After averaging 7.4 points and six rebounds in her 17.5 minutes per game last season with the Bruins, she’s putting up 15.2 points and pulling down 6.5 boards as a Lady Vol. And while Barker is now taking almost four 3s per game, having shot less than one per game last season, she has been ineffective from behind the arc, with her production instead a product of her improved 2-point finishing. She’s benefitting from Tennessee’s spaced floor, converting 61.5 percent of her 2-point attempts.

If Barker continues to play as she has in a Tennessee uniform, she could tip the scales towards her new team.

With Barker’s move from Westwood to Knoxville, the Bruins lost their most dynamic athlete. Lacking explosiveness, UCLA, especially if Betts is playing, succeeds through their more methodical, low-mistake processes. Tennessee, in contrast, is fast, frenetic and disruptive.

If the Lady Vols, with the Barker, Cooper, senior forward Zee Spearman and the rest of their plus athletes can establish the terms of engagement—and if Tennessee can see just enough of their many 3s find the bottom of the net—they can exit Southern California with a win that shows that Tennessee, not UCLA, is the championship-caliber team.