No. 19 Tennessee has big week ahead with rivalry game against UConn and rematch with LSU
Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell yells to her players during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against South Carolina, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025, in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)
It’s a busy week for Tennessee.
First up is a rivalry game against No. 5 UConn on Thursday and then Sunday is a rematch with sixth-ranked LSU, which beat the Lady Vols by two points last month.
A win over either opponent would be huge for Kim Caldwell, who is in her first year as the Lady Vols’ coach.
The Huskies and No. 19 Lady Vols renewed their rivalry in 2020 after a 13-year hiatus. Geno Auriemma’s squad has won all four meetings since, including a 17-point victory in Knoxville in 2023.
Tennessee is looking for its first signature victory under Caldwell, who is two weeks removed from giving birth to her son. The Lady Vols have come close to getting that big win; four of their five losses have come against highly ranked opponents.
Besides the LSU loss, Tennessee fell to Oklahoma by a point, Texas by four and South Carolina by seven.
Tennessee ended a three-game losing streak with a victory over Missouri on Sunday.
“We definitely needed it,” Caldwell said. “I just wish it would have looked a little bit better. Sometimes it’s about performance not production. And I don’t necessarily know that our performance is where it needs to be.”
UConn also could use a win Thursday. The Huskies are 3-2 against Top 25 opponents this season, with those two defeats coming against Southern California and Notre Dame.
The Huskies haven’t played a ranked team since that two-point loss to USC on Dec. 21. The only Top 25 contest currently left on their schedule is a trip to Columbia to play No. 2 South Carolina on Feb. 16.
Dominant up top
No. 1 UCLA has won its last 20 games by double-digits, extending the longest streak by a team in the Big Ten. It’s also the longest by the Bruins this century. Next up for UCLA is No. 8 Ohio State on Wednesday.
Big scoring efforts
Mikayla Blakes and Georgia Amoore had two stellar efforts in SEC play this week. Blakes, Vanderbilt’s talented freshman, scored an SEC-record 53 points in a win over Florida. Amoore, who transferred to Kentucky this past year, equaled the school record with 43 points in a win over Oklahoma on Sunday.
NET ratings
The NCAA’s weekly NET rankings — one of the tools the selection committee uses to determine the NCAA Tournament bracket — has an unchanged top four, with South Carolina still at No. 1, followed by UConn, Texas and UCLA.
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