The Tennessee women’s basketball team’s turnover woes continued Sunday afternoon in a 69-48 loss at top-ranked South Carolina.
The defeat at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia dropped the 22nd-ranked Lady Volunteers to 17-5 overall and 7-2 in the Southeastern Conference. Tennessee’s next game is at home against Mississippi State at 6:30 p.m. Thursday and will be televised by the SEC Network.
South Carolina (21-1, 9-0), which has won 15 straight games, dropped the Lady Vols to 14-35 all-time against No. 1-ranked teams. Tennessee, which lost 78-51 at Stanford on Dec. 18 when the Cardinal held the top ranking, has not beaten a No. 1 team since topping LSU in the SEC tournament title game on March 6, 2005.
Rennia Davis led Tennessee with 18 points and 10 rebounds, Lou Brown added eight points and six rebounds and Tamari Key set a new Tennessee freshman record for blocked shots in a single game with nine. The 6-foot-5 center from Cary, North Carolina, passed the seven set by Kelley Cain, who was a redshirt freshman in 2008-09, and Candace Parker, a redshirt freshman in 2005-06.
However, the Lady Vols committed 21 turnovers and were outrebounded 39-37 by the equally big and equally athletic Gamecocks, who had 15 offensive rebounds to the Lady Vols’ nine.