Lady Vols basketball fell in the polls after suffering the largest margin of defeat in program history at South Carolina.
Tennessee (15-6, 7-2 SEC) was ranked No. 22 in both the USA TODAY coaches poll and in the Associated Press poll after escaping Georgia with an overtime win and losing 93-50 against the Gamecocks on Feb. 8. The Lady Vols were ranked No. 17 in the coaches poll and No. 19 in the AP Top 25 last week.
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Tennessee is in the thick of a brutal stretch to end the season that includes six ranked opponents in nine games. It also has to make up the postponed road matchup with Ole Miss on Feb. 17, playing four games in an eight-day span.
The Lady Vols will play three of their next four games at home, starting with Missouri (16-10, 4-7) at Food City Center on Feb. 12 (6:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network+).
Tennessee started the season as a consensus top-10 team, ranked No. 9 in the coaches preseason poll and No. 8 in the AP preseason poll. It fell out of the top 10 after losing the season opener to NC State and dropped to No. 12 in both polls after starting 2-1.
UT had its biggest drop in the polls after its losses to UCLA and Louisville. It fell six spots in the coaches poll and five spots in the AP poll after losing to the Bruins, and it fell six spots in the AP Top 25 after losing to Louisville.
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Tennessee ended the 2024-25 season ranked No. 16 in the coaches poll and No. 15 in the AP poll after starting Kim Caldwell’s first season at the helm unranked. UT was ranked as high as No. 11 last season, though it never cracked the top 10.
The Lady Vols have been ranked in the AP Top 25 the most of any program since the poll began in 1976. UT has been ranked in 808 of the 899 polls.
AP Top 25
USA TODAY coaches poll
Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee women’s athletics reporter for Knox News. Email: cora.hall@knoxnews.com; X: @corahalll; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social. Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks:knoxnews.com/subscribe
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Updating Lady Vols basketball’s ranking in college basketball polls
