Lady Vols Ranked in Preseason AP Top 25
Tennessee women's basketball has been a dominant force on Rocky Top for quite some time, and in head coach Kellie Harper's third year, expectations and excitations are being ignited in Tennessee fans.
And with tip-off of the Lady Vols' first game against Southern Illinois three weeks away from Wednesday, Kellie Harper's squad has their official preseason ranking of 15th.
The Lady Vols' Twitter page released the following tweet Tuesday afternoon:
Just barely in the back half of the rankings, the Lady Vols join three other SEC teams in the top 25, as South Carolina comes in at no. 1 on the list with Kentucky two spots ahead of the Lady Vols at 13 and Texas A&M ten spots behind that at no. 23.
The Lady Vols will play eight ranked teams in the 2021-2022 schedule, including all top three squads in South Carolina, UConn and Stanford, along with four other teams that received AP votes.
In Harper's three years at the helm, this is the first year Tennessee has officially made the preseason poll, and it marks the first year since the 2018-2019 season when the Lady Vols came in at no. 11.
As far as the preseason media rankings go, the Lady Vols are projected to be slightly better in terms of how they will fare in their conference, as Tennessee lands at no. 2 in the SEC. (See tweet below):
The Lady Vols 2020-2021 season finished on a sour note with a tough loss to Michigan in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, but Tennessee was able to finish out the season ranked 13th, the first end of season ranking for the Lady Vols since the 2017-2018 season.
The Lady Vols will host Southern Illinois on November 10 in Thompson Bowling Arena, a day after Rick Barnes' Tennessee BasektVols host UT Martin in TBA at 7 p.m. ET. The start time for the Lady Vols first game is to be determined.
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