We’re just a month away from college basketball returning. This means the offseason storylines are playing out, and we’re almost able to see the on-court product for every team in the country. ESPN’s Charlie Creme took the moment to update his NCAA Tournament bracketology, including where he has the Lady Vols.
Creme slotted Tennessee as a 2-seed in Region 1 Fort Worth. This would mean that the Lady Vols would host the first two rounds of the tournament as a top-four national seed.
UT’s first game would be slotted against 15-seed Maine. If Tennessee survived, it’d host the winner between 7-seed Princeton and 10-seed SMU in the following round. If it were the Mustangs, it’d be a matchup against her old school for Nya Robertson. The Lady Vols guard transferred from SMU this offseason.
A second-straight trip to the Sweet 16 to open up Kim Caldwell’s tenure as head coach would then send the team to Fort Worth. In this bracketology, it’d likely mean a matchup with 3-seed Maryland or 6-seed Vanderbilt. Tennessee will play Vanderbilt in the regular season on March 1 at home. A year ago, the Commodores beat UT twice, once at home and once in the SEC Tournament.
Possible Elite Eight squads the Lady Vols could meet if they took care of business as the higher seed to that point would be 1-seed UConn, 4-seed Louisville or 5-seed Iowa. Tennessee will play both UConn and Louisville in its out-of-conference schedule this year, and played Iowa a year ago. The Lady Vols beat both the Huskies and Hawkeyes in Caldwell’s first season.
The 2-seed designation for Tennessee is tied for the third-highest mark in the SEC. South Carolina and Texas are projected as 1-seeds, with LSU and Oklahoma also 2-seeds. If UT does earn a 2-seed, it’d be the highest mark since 2015.
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Here is the Lady Vols’ full schedule for the 2025-26 season:
- Nov. 4: NC State (Greensboro)
- Nov. 7: ETSU
- Nov. 9: at UT Martin
- Nov. 13: Belmont
- Nov. 20: at MTSU
- Nov. 23: Coppin State
- Nov. 30: at UCLA
- Dec. 3: at Stanford
- Dec. 14: Winthrop
- Dec. 20: Louisville (Brooklyn)
- Dec. 22: Southern Indiana
- Jan. 1: vs. Florida
- Jan. 4: at Auburn
- Jan. 8: at Mississippi State
- Jan. 11: vs. Arkansas
- Jan. 18: at Alabama
- Jan. 22: vs. Kentucky
- Jan. 26: at Ole Miss
- Jan. 29: vs. Mississippi State
- Feb. 1: at UConn
- Feb. 5: at Georgia
- Feb. 8: at South Carolina
- Feb. 12: vs. Missouri
- Feb. 15: vs. Texas
- Feb. 19: vs. Texas A&M
- Feb. 22: at Oklahoma
- Feb. 26: at LSU
- March 1: vs. Vanderbilt
The Lady Vols will also play an exhibition against Columbus State on Oct. 29, open to the public. A closed scrimmage against North Carolina will be held, as well.
“Including our conference opponents, our schedule includes the top six teams and 10 of the top 20-ranked programs in the early preseason polls,” Lady Vols coach Kim Caldwell said. “We have our work cut out for us, but I believe our challenging non-conference opponents will better prepare us for what we’re going to see in the Southeastern Conference.
“We’re a little out of balance in terms of home and away ranked opponents, and that’s something that takes some time to even out. We’ll continue to work on it going forward, but I think this year it will allow us to really test our players and get them ready for conference play.”
