GREENVILLE, S.C. — For what has become a rare occasion, the Lady Vols basketball team is exiting Greenville, South Carolina, the same day they started, after dropping the second-round contest to Alabama.
There was very little to go on at any moment in the game; the Lady Vols continued to slide, losing 84-76 to Alabama.
The Crimson Tide (23-9, 7-9) didn’t allow a single Tennessee lead the entire game. The closest the team came to the Crimson Tide was in the early goings of the first quarter after a Zee Spearman 3-pointer tied the game at 12.
“We had too many turnovers tonight,” Lady Vols head coach Kim Caldwell said. “I think we got outworked, outplayed, outcoached from the very start.”
The Lady Vols (16-13, 8-8) continue to fall deeper and deeper into a hole. The tournament loss stands as the team’s seventh straight loss, marking the longest losing streak in the history of the school.
For just the second time in the history of the program, the Lady Vols lose in their opening game of the SEC Tournament. The one other occasion came against Alabama in 2017.
Janiah Barker led the scoring offensively with 20 points, shooting an up-and-down 6-for-14 while shooting just 2-for-5 from the 3-point line. She added five rebounds, but turned the ball over seven times.
While Barker was making an impact offensively, she finished her day with no assists, along with those turnovers, as not much offensive movement came from her end.
Along with Barker, only Spearman finished double-digit points as she ended her day with 13 points.
Talaysia Cooper, who started the game for the Lady Vols, finished the game with just 12 minutes logged. It is her lowest total in minutes played for this season, but tied the lowest in her Lady Vols career. She played 12 minutes against Georgia on Senior Day in 2025, a game where Cooper exited with an injury.
“It was a coach’s decision, and we just wanted to give her some air,” Caldwell said. “I think your emotions can get running and just wanted to get her outside and with the staff members, so she could breathe.”
There were very few positives to build on throughout the game, but the main difference in the statistical categories was the turnover margin, along with the points in the paint battle. The Lady Vols finished the game with 18 turnovers, 12 of which came in the first half, forcing Tennessee into early holes often.
“We’re trying to dribble through the zone, dribble through gaps that weren’t there,” Caldwell said. “I think at their place, we did a really good job of swinging it side to side, making it move, and then we could attack it. We didn’t have the patience to do that tonight.”
For every answer it felt the team had, the Crimson Tide responded. Alabama’s Jessica Timmons finished her day with a team-high 23 points on 8-for-16 shooting.
The losing trends only worsened. The team, by the time their next game happens, will have not won a contest since Feb. 12, when they defeated Missouri at home. They’ve now lost 10 of their last 12 games, and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.
“I think it’s patience, and we did talk about patience,” Caldwell said. “We talked about it pre-game of if you’re patient enough, if you swing the ball around enough, and everyone touches it, then you’ll have a much cleaner look. And then I think just the moment, and we have players that wanna do it all at once, and it is frustrating. But again, we just have to continue to try”
The team will have to wait until March 8 for Selection Sunday to figure out where their next contest lies. Until then, they must sit in the worst stretch in Lady Vols history.
“I would say just having positive talk,” Nya Robertson said. “Knowing that my energy feeds off on everybody else, so when I’m here, everybody else is here. So I just gotta keep bringing energy and just knowing, we got this.”
