AP Top 25: Tennessee's struggles continue as Lady Vols slide down rankings after loss to Louisville in Champions Classic

There’s no worse feeling for a baker ahead of the holidays than to pull out a tray of cookies that have spread and melted out of shape from the high heat of the stove. It’s also not what a coach wants to see from their Associated Press Top-25-ranked squad in a December showcase. 

Yet, it’s exactly what Tennessee second-year head coach Kim Caldwell faced in a 89-65 loss to then-No. 16 Louisville at the Champions Classic in Brooklyn on Saturday, a discerning result this time of year. 

“We had a terrible display of basketball today,” Caldwell said. Her players hung their heads after bad breaks and didn't take proper accountability, creating a spiral of precipitating problems that Caldwell said "kind of melted and it kind of spread and we could never recover.” 

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The Lady Vols kept within a couple of possessions until the final minutes of the third quarter. Louisville’s Imari Berry hit a 3-pointer to make it 57-50 at 2:53, and the Cardinals outscored them 32-15 the rest of the way. The third quarter collapse included seven turnovers by Tennessee, and the team never locked into the knowledge that their style of play could erase double-digit deficits with relative ease. 

That would take a level of full-game effort that didn’t travel to Barclays Center this weekend, and hasn’t for any of their major non-conference contests, raising concern that the Lady Vols aren’t taking a step forward. Rather, they could fall down a deep SEC in the new year if they don’t seriously commit to resolutions. 

The Lady Vols fell to 0-3 against AP Top 25 competition, the worst record in the SEC. Texas is 5-0, taking the crown that had long been held by South Carolina (2-1). Ole Miss is 1-0, while Kentucky and Oklahoma are 1-1. No one else has played a Top 25 team. 

The season began strong in an 80-77 loss to then-No. 9 NC State, though that loss looks worse given the Wolfpack’s losses (1-3 vs AP Top 25). The Lady Vols weren’t competitive in the second half of a 99-77 loss to UCLA. In all three losses, their defensive intensity wavered; those are their only single-digit steal outings, while averaging 15.8 a game in their seven wins. Losing the boards as they have in these matchups hasn’t helped their focus on second-chance opportunities (lost 24-7 to Louisville), nor pushing the pace in transition. 

“No, this is a terrible result. This is not a good result,” Caldwell said. “I was really hoping that we would take a big step forward. I do think we’ve gotten better. It didn’t show. It’s not showing on the floor. But in practice, everything is getting better.”

Caldwell described Louisville as “leaps and bounds better than us today,” apt verbs to describe Tennessee’s lack of focus and effort. Issues that could be covered up by playing an inferior opponent are out in the open, a juxtaposition to this time a year ago when Tennessee cemented its spot on the radar in a 78-68 Women’s Champions Classic victory over Iowa. The Lady Vols began 13-0 in Caldwell’s first season before losing by one to Oklahoma and by two to LSU. Excluding a 24-point drubbing to Kentucky, the Lady Vols lost nine games last season — all to SEC opponents — by an average of 4.3 points. 

“It would have been great to have the same result [at the Classic],” Caldwell said. “It would have been great to get this win going into SEC play [and] kind of be what propelled us going forward. It would have been a signature win for us. I really hope that this was not our signature today.” 

Tennessee can put changes into action on Monday against Southern Indiana (6:30 p.m. ET, SECN+). They begin SEC play against Florida on New Year’s Day in a back-loaded schedule. They’ll host Kentucky on Jan. 22 and head to Ole Miss on Jan. 26, with South Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma, LSU and Vanderbilt waiting in February. They’ll also head to UConn on Feb. 1 in a rivalry matchup they won a year ago as the Huskies went on to the national championship. 

That’s too far down the road. Right now, the Lady Vols are one of the more disappointing teams in non-conference play. 

Performance of the week: Kymora Johnson, Virginia

Virginia junior Kymora Johnson, a 5-foot-7 guard, needed only 20 shot attempts to score a career-high 41 points in a 88-53 win over Winthrop on Saturday. Remarkably, 10 of her 15 made field goals were beyond the arc to set a UVA record. She was 10-of-13 from 3-point range, 5-of-7 inside the arc and padded the total with merely one free throw (1-of-1). Johnson, a WBCA All-America Honorable Mention a year ago, added 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals. The scoring total is the second-most in program history (Mimi McKinney scored 48 in 1998) and the eighth 40-point game of the women’s basketball season.