The University of Mississippi Athletics
Rebels Fall At Tennessee In Regular Season Finale
2/28/2010 | Women's Basketball
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - All-America candidate Bianca Thomas scored 34 points, but it wasn't enough as No. 4 Tennessee downed Ole Miss 75-63 Sunday night from Thompson-Boling Assembly Center in the final game of the regular season.
Shekinna Stricklen scored 23 points, Alicia Manning added a career-high 15 to lead Tennessee.
Stricklen and Manning both added 10 rebounds to record double-doubles for the Lady Volunteers (27-2, 15-1 Southeastern Conference), who closed the regular season with their 11th consecutive win.
The Rebels (16-13, 6-8) lost for the eighth time in 10 games despite Thomas' 34 points, the second-highest total of her senior year.
Ole Miss erased a double-digit deficit in the second half to tie the score at 50 on Elizabeth Robertson's putback with 12:37 remaining, but Tennessee put away the game by scoring 17 of the next 21 points.
Thomas, the SEC's leading scorer, hit 11 of 27 field goals and four of her 10 3-point attempts to post the second-highest point total of her senior season.
"I think she proved to everyone again tonight that she is one of the top players in the conference," Ole Miss head coach Renee Ladner said. "She's still the leading scorer in the conference. I've said it all year. I think she's been a little disrespected, and she continues to prove people wrong. She was just outstanding for our team."
This one lacked some of the late drama of the last two meetings between the teams, both of which were won on last-second shots by Lady Vols guard Angie Bjorklund.
"It's happened two years straight," Thomas said. "Angie got a shot at the end in Oxford. It was very heartbreaking, not only to me but to the whole team."
The two teams could meet again in just a few days. The loss dropped Ole Miss to the No. 9 seed for this week's SEC tournament in Duluth, Ga., where the Rebels will open Thursday against eighth-seeded South Carolina at 11 a.m. (CT).
The winner will advance to play Tennessee for the third time this season on Friday.
"If we have to play Ole Miss again, that's a big challenge," Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt said. "South Carolina is playing well."
The Lady Vols scored the game's first eight points in less than two minutes -- including two 3s by Stricklen -- and took a 40-32 advantage into halftime.
Stricklen finished with double-digit scoring for the sixth consecutive game for Tennessee, which shot 42.6 percent and scored 34 points in the paint.
"I think she's been in the gym and getting up just shot after shot after shot," Summitt said of Stricklen. "She's just committed to being a player that's going to have repetition offensively, and not just occasionally but often."
