The headline of this story is a quote by Pat Summitt. The iconic coach said it when her team made mistakes and needed to get better. The Lady Vols compiled a lot of teaching moments in Thursday’s 82-58 loss at Kentucky.

Coach Kim Caldwell sounded a tad like her after the game.

“We got outworked,” Caldwell said. “We got outhustled. We didn’t have any response once our shots weren’t going in. I think Kentucky wanted it more than us. Killed us on the glass. We just didn’t show up.”

That’s a brutal assessment and an accurate one. The Lady Vols faltered in the first quarter, trailed 45-26 at halftime, got out-scored 29-19 in the third quarter and managed just 13 points in the fourth quarter. The rebounding margin was 52-31 in the favor of the Wildcats.

“We didn’t have any effort,” Caldwell said. “We tried to rebound one-on-one with them, and when you’re outsized in almost every position, that doesn’t work. We talked about wanting a championship level effort on rebounds, and Kentucky had that.”

The last week of the regular season tends to be erratic as teams have worn down and are trying to cross the finish line. Thursday’s outcomes followed that pattern.

Texas, a one-loss team in the SEC and projected No. 1 seed in NCAA tourney, barely held off Mississippi State, an eight-loss team in the conference, and stayed in the hunt for an SEC title. LSU, a projected No. 2 seed in the NCAA tourney, struggled against Alabama and lost in overtime. In the ACC, Florida State defeated Notre Dame, a projected No. 1 seed in the NCAA tourney, after falling behind by 15 points.

Jewel Spear tries to find some space against Kentucky. (Kate Luffman/ Tennessee Athletics)

Before play began Thursday, the NCAA did a second and final reveal of the top 16 seeds in the NCAA tourney – those are the teams that will host the early rounds – and the Lady Vols landed as a No. 3 seed after initially being projected as a four seed.

Thursday’s loss doesn’t wipe out the Lady Vols’ chances of being among the final top 16 seeds in March, but Tennessee likely must win its final regular season game to hold onto a spot.

The Lady Vols got scoring against Kentucky from Talaysia Cooper with 25 points, most of which came in the second half by getting to the rim.

“She had her moments, and then she saw that ball going in,” Caldwell said. “And we do that as a team. It’s not just Coop. I think it’s every single player that’s on the floor is that when things are going great, we’re hitting shots, we’re doing exactly what we need to be doing.

“And this team is not going to go very far if the ball going in the hole dictates how hard they play on defense. And that’s across the board.”

Talaysia Cooper gets to the rim for Tennessee at Kentucky. (Kate Luffman/ Tennessee Athletics)

The size of Kentucky allowed the Wildcats to outscore Tennessee in the paint, 46-32.

“I think our bigs did a poor job on their bigs,” Caldwell said. “They hit some tough shots, and at the end of the day, I mean, Clara Strack didn’t miss a shot, and we had multiple bodies on her.”

Strack was perfect from the field at 11-11 and finished the double-double with 15 rebounds.

It was an unusual outing for Tennessee because the Lady Vols couldn’t shake off the start and never got on track. While the Lady Vols have lost games this season, it was the first time Tennessee didn’t have a response.

Tennessee will finish the regular season this Sunday, March 2, against Georgia with a with noon tipoff for Senior Day in Knoxville. Preparation for that game will come after a lengthy film review on Friday.

“We’re going to watch this one,” Caldwell said. “This one’s going to simmer. We’ve got to fix us before we can talk about anyone else.”

Maria M. Cornelius, a senior writer/editor at MoxCar Marketing + Communications since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press.