Updating Lady Vols rankings in college basketball polls after losses to Kentucky, Georgia
Lady Vols basketball tumbled in the Associated Press poll after two straight losses, the second to a sub-.500 Georgia team on Sunday.
Tennessee (21-8, 8-8 SEC) is ranked No. 18 in the AP Top 25, dropping seven spots after getting blown out 82-58 by Kentucky on the road and losing 72-69 to the Bulldogs on senior day. The Lady Vols were ranked No. 11 in both the USA TODAY coaches poll and AP poll last week. The USA TODAY coaches poll is released on Tuesdays.
Tennessee fell to the No. 9 seed in the SEC Tournament with the losses, and it will play No. 16 seed Texas A&M (10-18, 3-13) in the first game Wednesday (11 a.m. ET, SEC Network) at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina.
The Lady Vols' four-game winning streak was brought to an abrupt halt last week. They beat Auburn, Ole Miss, Alabama and Florida going into their final ranked matchup of the year, but they crumbled on the road, missing an opportunity to improve their NCAA Tournament seeding.
Alabama is Tennessee's lone ranked win in SEC play – it lost all its other ranked matchups, which included Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina, Kentucky and LSU twice. Seven of the Lady Vols' losses were by single digits. The 24-point loss to the Wildcats was the only loss by more than seven points.
Tennessee reentered the top 15 after its signature win over UConn on Feb. 6. It was Caldwell's debut in the storied rivalry and Tennessee's first win against the Huskies since 2007.
The Lady Vols started Caldwell's first season going 13-0 before suffering their first loss, which was their best start to a season since going 15-0 in 2017-18. Their 7-0 start got them back in the rankings on Dec. 9 with wins over Florida State and then-No. 20 Iowa.
Tennessee has been ranked in the polls for the last 13 weeks, restarting its streak in the polls after being unranked for more than a year. In the entire history of the AP Top 25, Tennessee has spent 791 of 882 weeks ranked.
ALL-SEC AWARDS: USA TODAY Sports Network 2025 All-SEC women's basketball awards, coach and player of the year
Before getting ranked this season, the last time the Lady Vols had been ranked in the AP Top 25 was Week 4 of the 2023-24 season, which was released Nov. 27, 2023. Tennessee had only been ranked for 10 of the previous 45 weeks of the AP Top 25 since being ranked the entire 2021-22 season.
The Lady Vols first climbed into the top 15 on Dec. 23 after winning three games away from Knoxville. Tennessee won its first true road game against Memphis and then won both its games at the West Palm Beach Classic against Richmond and Tulsa in a four-day span.
Cora Hall covers University of Tennessee women's athletics. Email her at cora.hall@knoxnews.com and follow her on X @corahalll. If you enjoy Cora's coverage, consider a digital subscription that allows you to access all of it.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Updating Lady Vols rankings in college basketball polls
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