Updating Lady Vols rankings in college basketball polls after UCLA loss

Lady Vols basketball dropped five spots in the Associated Press poll after a blowout loss in its second ranked matchup of the season.

Tennessee (5-2) was ranked No. 19 in the AP Top 25 on Dec. 1 after losing 99-77 at No. 3 UCLA on Nov. 30. The Lady Vols were ranked No. 14 in the AP poll and No. 11 in the USA TODAY coaches poll last week.

Tennessee's matchup with UCLA was the only one it played last week. It will have one more game on its trip to the West Coast for the ACC/SEC Challenge. The Lady Vols will play at Stanford on Dec. 3 (9:15 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

Tennessee started the season as a consensus top-10 team, ranked No. 9 in the USA TODAY coaches preseason poll and No. 8 in the AP Top 25 preseason poll. It fell out of the top 10 after losing the season opener to NC State and dropped to No. 12 in both polls after starting 2-1.

Tennessee ended the 2024-25 season ranked No. 16 in the USA TODAY coaches poll and No. 15 in the AP poll after starting Kim Caldwell's first season at the helm unranked. UT was ranked as high as No. 11 last season, though it never cracked the top 10.

The Lady Vols have been ranked in the AP Top 25 the most of any program since the poll began in 1976. UT has been ranked in 798 of the 889 polls.

Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee women’s athletics reporter for Knox News. Email: [email protected]; X: @corahalll; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social‬. Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks:knoxnews.com/subscribe

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee women's basketball rankings in polls after UCLA blowout loss