Lady Vols basketball may be turning over its entire roster, but expectations are still relatively high. After the majority of transfer portal movement settled, USA TODAY’s Mitchell Northam updated his top 25 rankings ahead of the 2026-27 women’s college basketball season.
In his rankings, Tennessee clocked in at No. 25 in the country. This is good for the seventh-best mark in the SEC. UT clocks in behind No. 1 South Carolina, No. 6 Vanderbilt, No. 7 LSU, No. 13 Texas, No. 14 Ole Miss and No. 18 Kentucky.
The top teams in the nation on the list are the No. 1 Gamecocks, No. 2 USC, No. 3 UConn, No. 4 Duke and No. 5 Michigan.
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The Lady Vols enter year three under Kim Caldwell with no returning players from last season’s team. Instead, she went out and landed the signing of 13 transfers and a pair of high school signees to fill up her 15-man roster.
“We really wanted to make sure that from the jump of the portal, we were getting those floor spacers out there,” Caldwell said. “Your bigs and your point guards are harder to come by, and so we have been really trying to get key pieces there that fit that with what we the way we want to play. You got to be willing to play fast, you got to be willing to play hard. You got to be willing to come in and work and want to win for Tennessee. And those are conversations we’ve had openly and pretty upfront with every player we’ve brought in.”
Of the potential returners, all eight entered the portal and landed at Power Four schools. This included Talaysia Cooper and Jaida Civil heading to Ole Miss and Kaniya Boyd landing at Texas A&M to stay in the SEC. Five-star high school signee Oliviyah Edwards also requested a release and later signed with South Carolina.
