Lady Vols surrender 11-point four-quarter lead in loss to Texas A&M

Nothing about the play, neither the sequence of crisp passes nor Mercedes Russell's resulting layup, suggested the follow-up.

Tennessee's bench erupted over the highlight-worthy moment, as did the 10,032 in attendance at Thompson-Boling Arena. With Russell's basket the Lady Vols' lead grew to 11 points early in the fourth quarter against Texas A&M on Sunday afternoon. They had a great shot at an important SEC women's basketball victory.

But Tennessee didn't make another shot thereafter. Not one of their eleven subsequent field goal attempts found the mark.

In the end, the moment that mattered most was Texas A&M center Khaalia Hillsman snagging an offensive rebound and swishing a foul lane jumper with four seconds left. The basket capped the Aggies' stunning comeback for their 61-59 victory.

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After Hillsman's basket, UT called timeout to advance the ball to the front court and withstood two fouls to get one final shot. Russell's turnaround attempt from the baseline drew iron instead of net.

"We got a good look," Russell said. "It looked good after I released. I just missed it."

Along with the shots, the Lady Vols (16-9, 7-5 SEC) missed a chance to vault into a tie for third place in the conference standings, thereby muddling their seeding prospects for next month's SEC tournament.

"This was a must-win for us in my opinion," UT coach Holly Warlick said. "A great opportunity for us and we let it slip away. We still have a lot of basketball to go but this one obviously hurts a little."

Despite her final miss, Russell led Tennessee with 17 point and 11 rebounds. Guard Alexa Middleton scored 14. But no other Lady Vol reached double figures.

Jaime Nared scored nine, shooting 2-for-7 from the floor. The junior forward's free throw was UT's lone point during the final 8 minutes, 49 seconds. Guard Diamond DeShields,who was in early foul trouble for a second consecutive game, scored 8 points and shot 4-for-12.

Danni Williams scored 18 points to lead Texas A&M (19-6, 9-3), which utilized just six players. The Aggies have recouped deficits of at least nine points in four of their conference victories.

Tennessee's offense, which was emerging as a team strength, produced five points and 2-for-13 shooting from the floor (15.4 percent) in the fateful last quarter.

"There were some shots that we normally hit and some shots that probably weren't great," Middleton said.

Three of the final 11 misses were 3-point shots. UT was 3-for-14 from long range.Six others were recorded as missed jumpers. At least two of those were from the foul lane area. A miss by DeShields came off the dribble going toward the basket.

"We went away from what had gotten us the lead," DeShields said. "We started taking jump shots. We were missing those shots and they were able to rebound the ball and have opportunities on their end to score and cut the lead."

Before Hillsman's game winner, a game-tying 3-pointer by Curtyce Knox, who shot 3-for-15 from the floor, followed a Texas A&M offensive rebound. The Aggies gathered 15 such rebounds as part of their 45-34 rebounding advantage. They resulted in a crucial 14-8 edge in second chance points.

"I think you could tell we were letting fatigue get to us a little bit, like on offensive rebounds," Middleton said.

Warlick couldn't relate to such thinking.

"How can you be tired?" she asked. "I'm not going to buy that. I'm not buying fatigue. You have to suck it up. It didn't hurt A&M."