Lady Vols basketball has now lost seven straight games after dropping its opener in the SEC Tournament vs. Alabama, 76-64. Now, Tennessee sits at 16-13 (8-8 SEC) on the season and awaits its positioning inside the NCAA Tournament.
After the loss to the Tide, ESPN’s Charlie Creme updated his bracketology, which projects the full 68-team field for the NCAA Tournament. Creme has the Lady Vols dropping down to an 8-seed.
In the ESPN projection, Tennessee would open the tournament against 9-seed Virginia Tech. The winner of that game would get the winner between 1-seed UCLA and 16-seed CA Baptist. Those first two rounds would all be played in Los Angeles, on the home floor of the Bruins.
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If UT could pull off the upset, it’d head to Sacramento for the Sweet 16. It’d mark two-straight appearances in the second weekend for Kim Caldwell. Likely opponents in that round include 4-seed Kentucky and 5-seed Michigan State.
Other top seeds in the region include 2-seed Vanderbilt and 3-seed Duke.
Tennessee is one of 10 SEC schools projected to make the tournament. This is the second-most in the conference behind just the Big Ten’s 12 teams. Texas A&M and Mississippi State are both on the outside looking in on the bubble, as well.
“Yeah, I do,” Caldwell said about if her team should make the NCAA Tournament. “I think we’ve played the hardest schedule in the country. I think the majority of that came in February, but we have significant wins, and I think that – we hope to get in and continue to try to be a different team.”
Selection Sunday is scheduled for March 15 at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. The first round is slated to be held on March 20-21.
