Lady Vols basketball dropped two spots in the AP poll after losing its third game of the season.
Tennessee (15-3, 3-3 SEC) is ranked No. 17 in the Associated Press poll after losing at Vanderbilt 71-70 on Sunday. The Lady Vols were ranked No. 15 in both the USA TODAY coaches poll and the AP Top 25 last week. Tennessee also notched a win over Mississippi State at home last week.
The Lady Vols are on the road for a second straight game and will play Texas (17-2, 4-1) at the Moody Center on Thursday (9 p.m. ET, SEC Network).
The Lady Vols started coach Kim 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. Tennessee has beaten Texas A&M, Arkansas and Mississippi State in SEC play and dropped three games by one possession to Vanderbilt, Oklahoma and LSU.
Tennessee has been ranked in the polls for the last seven 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 785 of 876 weeks ranked.
The Lady Vols reentered the polls on Dec. 9 after wins over Florida State and then-No. 20 Iowa. Before that, the last time they had been ranked in the AP Top 25 was Week 4 of the 2023-24 season, which was released Nov. 27, 2023.
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Before getting ranked this season, 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 cora.hall@knoxnews.com and follow her on Twitter @corahalll. If you enjoy Cora’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that allows you to access all of it.
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