KNOXVILLE - Tennessee's streak of participating in every NCAA women's basketball tournament could be in jeopardy - again.
The Lady Vols (17-9, 7-6 Southeastern Conference) have lost five straight games as their schedule has toughened considerably over the past few weeks, though they won't play a team with a winning record the rest of the regular season. The late slide comes one year after Tennessee earned one of the last at-large bids into the NCAA tourney, was a No. 11 seed and lost in the first round to UCLA.
Tennessee is 55th in the Rating Percentage Index, which factors in a team's record and strength of schedule and is used by the selection committee for the NCAA women's basketball tournament. Last year, Tennessee was 60th and had the lowest RPI of any team to earn an at-large bid.
That leaves the Lady Vols with little margin for error.
"I think we have to maximize every day, whether that's a game, practice or off day," first-year Lady Vols coach Kellie Harper said. "We've shown some improvement. We have to continue to improve - and we have to clean some things up, and I think we know that."
The Lady Vols have reached the national women's tournament every year since the NCAA started running the event in 1982. Tennessee is the only program with that distinction.
Harper was part of that history as a point guard for coach Pat Summitt on three straight national championship teams in the late 1990s. Harper's predecessor as coach, Holly Warlick, was fired last year after going 172-67 in seven seasons but failing to get the Lady Vols beyond the second round of the NCAA tournament her final three seasons.
Tennessee has faced plenty of obstacles in Harper's debut campaign.
The transfers of Evina Westbrook to Connecticut and Mimi Collins to Maryland meant Tennessee returned only two of its top six scorers from 2018-19. One of those was Zaay Green, who played just two games this season before tearing the ACL in her right knee.
Tennessee still won 15 of its first 18 games and was in the AP Top 25 as recently as last week thanks largely to junior Rennia Davis, who ranks second in the SEC in scoring (18.1 points per game), but the Lady Vols have struggled lately against a back-loaded schedule.
During this five-game skid, they have faced four ranked teams: No. 1 South Carolina, No. 9 Mississippi State, No. 16 Texas A&M and No. 22 Arkansas. The other loss came at LSU (18-7, 8-5).
"We knew it was going to be a tough stretch," said Harper, who coached Missouri State to a Sweet 16 appearance last season. "When you picked up the schedule, you knew what this was going to be. If I had this designed, it would have been earlier in the season so we could get through it, learn from it and move on, but it comes at a late time. It is what it is."
The tougher schedule has exposed Tennessee's inability to take care of the ball consistently. The Lady Vols have averaged 16.9 turnovers per game this season. Vanderbilt and Ole Miss are the only SEC teams that are worse.
What's interesting about the Lady Vols when it comes to considering their worthiness of an NCAA berth is that they lack embarrassing losses or notable wins.
All the teams that have beaten Tennessee are in the top 50 of the RPI, and all but two are in the top 30. The Lady Vols' only victory over a team in the top 80 of the RPI came against LSU (26th), which split its regular-season meetings with Tennessee as the home team won each time.
That makes it imperative the Lady Vols avoid slipping up as they close the regular season by facing the bottom three teams in the league standings. The Lady Vols host Vanderbilt (13-13, 3-10) at noon Sunday - ESPN will televise the game - and Ole Miss (7-19, 0-13) next Thursday before visiting Auburn (9-15, 3-10) on March 1.
The SEC tournament starts three days later in Greenville, South Carolina.
Charlie Creme, who forecasts the NCAA bracket for ESPN, said he currently has Tennessee in the field but ahead of only four other at-large teams. Creme said the Lady Vols would be in "real trouble" if they lose any of their remaining regular-season games.
"That would mitigate sort of that one part of the résumé that stands out, that they haven't had any bad losses," Creme said. "The quality of the teams that they've lost to is pretty good, even though it's been a bunch of them now."