Expectations were sky high for Lady Vols basketball entering year two under Kim Caldwell. ESPN projected Tennessee to earn a 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament after making a Sweet 16 run the year prior.
However, after a 2-1 start and three suboptimal performances, the Lady Vols have dropped to a projected 3-seed for March Madness by ESPN. Now, Charlie Creme has Tennessee in Region 1 Fort Worth facing 14-seed Troy to open up the tournament.
A seed on the four-line or higher does mean the Lady Vols would host the first two rounds of the tournament. The past two seasons, Tennessee has instead had to go on the road to NC State in Kellie Harper’s final season and at Ohio State a year ago, in which Caldwell orchestrated an upset over the Buckeyes to advance.
The second round in the ESPN projection would see the Lady Vols host the winner of 6-seed Richmond and 11-seed Minnesota/Kansas State if UT could avoid an upset itself.
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If Tennessee managed to return to the Sweet 16 stage for the second-straight season, it’d head to Fort Worth for the third round. There, likely opponents in this projection are a rematch with 2-seed NC State, in which the Lady Vols lost by three to to open the season, 7-seed Kentucky and 10-seed Columbia.
Other top seeds in the region that Tennessee would have to go through to reach a Final Four include 1-seed UConn, 4-seed Ole Miss and 5-seed Michigan.
The projection includes 10 teams from the SEC in the field. This is the second-most of any conference behind the Big Ten’s 13.
The Lady Vols’ position as a 3-seed is the fifth-best mark in the conference behind 1-seeds South Carolina and Texas and 2-seeds LSU and Oklahoma.
