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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee ended a two-game skid decisively enough to give its top players an early rest before its toughest challenge of the season.Jaime Nared and Mercedes Russell each scored 16 points despite sitting out the entire fourth quarter Wednesday in the 22nd-ranked Lady Volunteers 86-36 blowout of Tennessee State.Diamond DeShields also got to rest for most of the fourth quarter as the Lady Vols (4-2) tuned up for Sundays home game with No. 4 Baylor.It was just a good little opportunity for us to come out and make it strictly about us, DeShields said. We knew we were the better team tonight. We knew we were going to win by a lot of points, but honestly it wasnt even about that. It was just about us.When youre playing a Baylor, you dont have as many opportunities to make mistakes. Everythings got to be flowing the right way if you want to come out on top of a team like that, so for us I think it was just important for everybody to work on whats been going wrong the last two games.The Lady Vols were back home for the first time since Nov. 13 after going 1-2 during a three-game road stretch that included consecutive losses to Penn State and Virginia Tech.Tennessee utilized its height advantage to avoid its first three-game losing streak since February 1986. The Lady Vols outrebounded Tennessee State 61-38 and outscored the Lady Tigers 48-12 in the paint.We didnt play anywhere near the way were capable of playing, and I give Tennessee all the credit, Tennessee State coach Larry Joe Inman said. When we say `tall order, literally they were a tall order.Nared and DeShields each posted double-doubles, with Nared having 16 points and 10 rebounds while DeShields added 15 points and 10 rebounds.Kortney Dunbar had 13 points and nine rebounds. Alexa Middleton had nine points and 11 assists. Schaquilla Nunn added eight points and 15 rebounds.Maxine Beard scored seven points to lead Tennessee State (1-5).THE TAKEAWAYTennessee State: The Lady Tigers continued their shooting slump by going 5 of 22 from 3-point range and 8 of 43 from inside the arc. Tennessee State is shooting 35.3 percent overall and 26.1 percent from 3-point range amid a grueling early-season schedule featuring plenty of teams from bigger conferences. Tennessee States five losses have come against Xavier, Oklahoma State, UNLV, Wisconsin and Tennessee.Tennessee: The Lady Vols responded to their two-game skid by shuffling the lineup. Sophomore guard Meme Jackson made her first career start for Tennessee and Nunn was back in the starting lineup after coming off the bench for two of Tennessees last three games. They replaced the injured Reynolds as well as Middleton, who moved into a reserve role.INJURY NEWSTennessee was playing without usual starting point guard Jordan Reynolds, who hurt her hamstring Sunday at Virginia Tech. Lady Vols coach Holly Warlick expressed confidence that Reynolds would be available Sunday against Baylor.Tennessee State played without injured guard/forward Imani Davis, who was averaging 11.7 points per game.HONORING GATLINBURGTennessee participated in pregame warmups wearing special T-shirts with the word Gatlinburg over the Lady Vols logo to honor victims of the wildfires that have killed seven people and have destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in the Great Smoky Mountains area.Warlick said she spoke this week with Lisa McGill Reagan, a Lady Vol from 1976-79 who lost her home in the fire.Ive lived here pretty much all my life and Ive never seen anything so devastating thats close to home, Warlick said.NEXT UPTennessee State: At Lipscomb on Dec. 11.Tennessee: Hosts No. 4 Baylor on Sunday. . The team says the Spain international has a muscle pull in his right leg. Barcelona hosts third-division side Cartagena in the return leg of their round-of-32 tie after winning their first meeting 4-1. .com) - The red-hot Los Angeles Kings will try to extend their winning streak to a season-high seven games when they visit the Edmonton Oilers for Sundays clash at Rexall Place. . Jeff Green scored 13 points and Kris Humphries 12 for the Celtics, who nearly blew an 18-point, second-half lead. Sullingers 20-20 was the first by a Celtics player since Kevin Garnetts first game in Boston in 2007. Garnett was dealt -- along with Paul Pierce -- to Brooklyn during the off-season. .J. -- Seven games into a disappointing season, New York Giants defensive catalyst Jason Pierre-Paul is getting the feeling hes back. .05 million next season unless Graham and the Saints subsequently agree on a long-term deal. The designation was released Monday after the deadline passed for NFL teams to use franchise or transition tags on players becoming free agents. NEW YORK -- NBC said its Olympic audience reached parity with the London Games for the first time on the third night of competition. But theres an asterisk involved in the claim.The network said that its total audience delivery was 31.5 million for the Olympics on Monday night in prime time, compared to the virtually identical 31.6 million who watched on the corresponding night in London in 2012.The total audience delivery figure is a statistic NBC hurriedly invented when it saw sharp declines in its traditional ratings for the first couple of nights of the Rio de Janeiro Games. The Nielsen company said the television audience on NBC on Monday was 28.9 million -- strong, but short of London levels.But NBC is adding the viewership for prime-time telecasts on cables NBCSN (1.6 million) and Bravo (720,000) and people who streamed video online (about 300,000) to boost the number to 31.5 million -- its total audience delivery.NBC says the comparison is valid becaause even though the cable viewers werent watching the same thing as people tuned in to NBC, they were still watching the Olympics.dddddddddddd Theres no comparable number from 2012, because the company didnt allow its cable affiliates and website to compete with the prime-time NBC telecast four years ago.One of the indicators of changing viewer habits, especially with these Olympics, is that our digital consumption has more than tripled from London in each of the first three days of full competition, NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus said. Weve also been pleasantly surprised that our multi-platform strategy is paying big dividends.The new calculation is about more than bragging rights. NBC will use total audience delivery to convince advertisers that theyre reaching more viewers than the traditional Nielsen figures indicate. ' ' '
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