The Tennessee women’s basketball team has had a nice season so far to start the Kellie Harper era.
The 25th-ranked Lady Volunteers are close to 20 wins, a number they didn’t reach last year in Holly Warlick’s final campaign as coach.
For most women’s basketball programs in this country, that alone would be a success. In Knoxville, though, fans judge their team by its national profile, and the Lady Vols’ wins have come against a schedule considered weak by most measurements.
After Thursday’s 75-65 loss at LSU, Tennessee sits at 17-7 overall and 7-4 in the Southeastern Conference. Only one of those wins – the Lady Vols’ 63-58 victory over LSU on Jan. 26 in Knoxville – is against a team ranked in the top 50 of the Rating Percentage Index. Only three of the wins are against teams ranked in the RPI’s top 100 – Alabama, Georgia and LSU – with the Lady Vols now 3-7 against teams in that group.
Junior guard/forward Rennia Davis led the way for Tennessee with 19 points and six rebounds at LSU (18-5, 8-3), which has struggled against Tennessee in recent seasons, but as has been the case too often, she had little help as no other Lady Vol finished with more than nine points.