Lady Vols basketball didn’t budge in the Associated Press poll after two straight wins last week.
Tennessee (19-6, 6-6 SEC) is ranked No. 15 in the AP poll after blowing out Auburn and beating Ole Miss last week. The Lady Vols were ranked No. 15 in the AP Top 25 and No. 16 in the USA TODAY coaches poll last week. The USA TODAY coaches poll is released on Tuesdays.
Tennessee finishes its three-game homestand with another ranked matchup against No. 20 Alabama (20-5, 7-4) at Food City Center on Thursday (6:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network+).
Tennessee reentered the top 15 of the AP poll with its signature win over UConn in coach Kim Caldwell’s debut in the storied rivalry. It was the Lady Vols’ first win against the Huskies since 2007.
Tennessee has lost all of its ranked matchups in SEC play, though. The Lady Vols dropped games to Oklahoma, LSU, Texas and South Carolina by single digits. They also lost by one point to Vanderbilt on the road.
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 11 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 789 of 880 weeks ranked.
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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 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 [email protected] 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 after Ole Miss win
