Lady Vols basketball is riding a five-game win streak and is up to the No. 14 team in the country in the refreshed AP Poll. On Tuesday, ESPN’s Charlie Creme refreshed his bracketology to reflect the opening stretch of games to start the season.
In Creme’s projection, he has Tennessee as a 3-seed in the bracket. UT is placed in Region 1 Fort Worth, but would open the Round of 64 and 32 in Knoxville as a team inside the top-four seed line.
Creme has the Lady Vols opening the tournament against 14-seed Hawaii. The Rainbow Wahine would be an automatic qualifier as the projected winner of the Big West. If Tennessee avoided an upset, it’d then face the winner of 6-seed Louisville and 11-seed Illinois in the following round. The Lady Vols also play the Cardinals in Brooklyn in December.
If Kim Caldwell can steer Tennessee to back-to-back Sweet 16 berths in her second season, likely opponents in Fort Worth would be 2-seed TCU or 7-seed Stanford in this projection. The Lady Vols play Stanford in the ACC/SEC Challenge on the road this December, as well.
Other top seeds on the potential path to the Final Four include 1-seed UConn, who UT plays on the road, 4-seed USC and 5-seed Vanderbilt.
The SEC has 11 teams in the field in Creme’s projection. This is the second-most of any conference, behind 13 in the Big Ten. The Lady Vols’ 3-seed position is fifth in the SEC behind 1-seeds Texas and South Carolina and 2-seeds LSU and Oklahoma.
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Through six games, the Lady Vols are led in scoring by Talaysia Cooper. She has posted 16.2 points per game on 46.3% shooting from the field and 34.2% from range. Behind her is Janiah Barker at 15.2 points per contest on 48.4% shooting from the floor. Third place is Nya Robertson, who jumped up to 11.5 points per game after dropping 32 against Coppin State on Sunday afternoon.
The leading rebounder is Cooper, as well. She is up to 7.7 points and recorded a double-double in the win over CSU. Zee Spearman is right behind her at 7.3 boards per game. Barker is at 6.5.
It’s Cooper again leading in assists. She’s up to four per game at the moment. This goes with 3.8 steals per game, as well. Jaida Civil is second in assists at two per match.
Next, Tennessee will take the week off from game action before traveling to California. First is a contest at UCLA on Nov. 30 before matching up at Stanford on Dec. 3 in the ACC/SEC Challenge.
