The University of Tennessee’s basketball teams had a Nashville weekend to forget, with both visiting squads left singing the last-second blues after narrow losses to Vanderbilt in the Music City.
A day after a late rally by the UT men wasn’t quite enough — the sixth-ranked Volunteers missed a chance to force overtime while falling 76-75 on Saturday — the No. 15 Lady Vols suffered a similar finish as Vanderbilt freshman guard Mikayla Blakes capped her game-high 23 points by tipping in a missed shot at the buzzer, helping the Commodores rally last for a 71-70 victory Sunday at Memorial Gymnasium.
Vanderbilt ended its eight-game losing streak in the series between in-state Southeastern Conference rivals, but Tennessee still holds a commanding lead at 80-11. The Commodores hadn’t beaten the Lady Vols since winning 76-69 in Knoxville on Feb. 28, 2019; they did so at home for the first time since a 74-63 victory on Feb. 10, 2014.
“Hats off to Vanderbilt,” Lady Vols first-year coach Kim Caldwell said in a news conference while seated by senior Jewel Spear. “I think they outplayed us from the very beginning of the game to the very end of the game.”
Talaysia Cooper scored 20 points to lead Tennessee, which fell to 15-4 overall this season and 2-3 in the SEC with the losses by a combined four points. This was the first one to a ranked opponent, though, as Oklahoma was ninth in the AP Top 25 when it won 87-86 as Tennessee missed the last shot on Jan. 5 in Knoxville, while LSU was sixth when it won 89-87 with a last-second jumper there on Jan. 9.