KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee women's basketball team enters Southeastern Conference play tonight at home against Kentucky. The game tips off at 7 at Thompson-Boling Arena.

In their last time out, the seventh-ranked Lady Vols (11-2) overcame a 20-point halftime deficit, the largest in program history, to beat Rutgers 55-51 on Jan. 3.

On Wednesday, UT coach Pat Summitt was still marveling at the unprecedented comeback.

“It was incredible that we managed to get back in that game after halftime, scoring only 13 points (in the first half),” Summitt said during her weekly teleconference. “After halftime, we regrouped, and I just have to give our players a lot of credit for coming back and playing the way that we had hoped they would play from the beginning.”

That unpredictability may make scouting the Lady Vols more difficult than in years past, Summitt said.

“There's never a dull moment. We're probably less predictable because sometimes we don't know what we're going to do anyway. We have to wait and see as coaches.

“I think what we're seeing is the potential to have the balance from our inside game as well as our perimeter game. With such a young team, we're constantly working every day to get better.”

Playing tough non-conference opponents has helped. Aside from Rutgers, Tennessee beat Stanford, Old Dominion and Gonzaga, but lost to eighth-ranked Texas in Austin on Dec. 14 and Virginia on Nov. 17 in Knoxville.

“Hopefully the tough non-conference schedule will benefit for us now that we are opening up conference play,” Summitt said.

Kentucky (10-5) is riding a five-game winning streak. In their last game, the Wildcats outscored Miami (Ohio) 46-18 in the paint on Jan. 3, with forwards Victoria Dunlap and Eleia Roddy both notching double-doubles.

Dunlap, a 6-foot-1 sophomore from Nashville, leads the team in points (12.4) while the 6-3 Roddy paces the team in rebounds (9.2).

Wildcats guard Carly Morrow, who is averaging 6.8 points per game, is a graduate of Chattanooga Girls Preparatory School.

The Lady Vols will be without starting forward Vicki Baugh, whose lateral knee sprain will sideline her for the second-straight game.