Lady Vols basketball fell two additional positions in the Associated Press poll on Monday following their defeat to Vanderbilt in the SEC tournament.
Tennessee (22-9) is positioned at No. 20 in the AP Top 25 after being defeated by its in-state rival on two occasions within the same season, marking a first in the history of the program. The Lady Vols began the SEC tournament with a 40-point victory against Texas A&M, but then lost to the Commodores in the next round.
Tennessee will discover its position in the 2025 NCAA tournament bracket after losing its opportunity to host. The Lady Vols were previously anticipated to be a No. 3 seed, but they have dropped three out of their last four games since the in-season announcement of the top 16 seeds on February 27.
The Lady Vols’ four-game winning run came to a sudden end as they suffered a heavy defeat on the road against Kentucky. They defeated Auburn, Ole Miss, Alabama, and Florida leading up to their last ranked game of the season in Lexington, but they faltered away from home, losing a chance to enhance their NCAA Tournament seeding. They degraded their March Madness standing with a defeat to Georgia.
Alabama is the only ranked victory for Tennessee in SEC competition โ it was defeated in all its other ranked contests, which involved Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina, Kentucky, and LSU on two occasions. Eight of the Lady Vols’ defeats were by narrow margins. The 24-point defeat against the Wildcats was the sole loss by more than eight points.
Tennessee returned to the top 15 following its notable victory against UConn on February 6. It marked Caldwell’s first appearance in the famed rivalry and Tennessee’s initial victory over the Huskies since 2007.
The Lady Vols began Caldwell’s inaugural season with a record of 13-0 before facing their first defeat, marking their best start to a season since achieving 15-0 in 2017-18. Their 7-0 beginning propelled them into the rankings on Dec. 9, following victories against Florida State and then-No. 20 Iowa.
Tennessee has been listed in the polls for the past 14 weeks, resuming its streak after being unranked for over a year. Throughout the complete history of the AP Top 25, Tennessee has been ranked for 792 out of 883 weeks.
Prior to being ranked this season, the Lady Vols last appeared in the AP Top 25 during Week 4 of the 2023-24 season, which was published on Nov. 27, 2023. Tennessee had been ranked for just 10 of the last 45 weeks of the AP Top 25 since their continuous ranking during the 2021-22 season.