Lady Vols ranked No. 19 in new Associated Press Top 25
The Tennessee Lady Vols are off to a 7-0 start after beating Florida State and home and Iowa in New York Saturday night. The result of the fast start and two quality wins has Kim Caldwell’s program in this week’s AP top 25.
The Lady Vols come in ranked 19th and it marks the first time the program has been ranked since November of last year.
On the national stage Saturday night, Caldwell’s team was in a back and fourth game for 36 minutes then her team put the Hawkeyes away with a 14-1 run over the final 3:43 for the 78-68 win.
The Lady Vols held the Hawkeyes without a field goal for the last 4 minutes while Caldwell’s offense made 6 of their final 7 field goals.
“We just finally turned it on,” Caldwell said. “We’ve been asking them to press, press, press, pressure, pressure, pressure. Hit a couple shots. It’s easier to have a little more juice. Get up, get up in their space. And then we did that, and they looked like a different team for the last two-and-a-half minutes.”
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Through seven games, the Lady Vols are definitely a different program with their pressure style of defense and fast paced offense. They forced Iowa into 30 turnovers and for the year, Caldwell’s squad has created 116 steals and forced 198 turnovers. They have also taken 193 more shots than their opponent, an average of 27.5 more a game.
Despite the early success and the two quality wins this past week to land them in the polls, Caldwell has made it clear there’s a lot of work to be done.
“Wasn’t pretty,” Caldwell said of the win over Iowa. “It wasn’t our best game, but I think you can turn that into a positive, that we can get a lot better, and we have a high ceiling.”
The Lady Vols return home Saturday for a 2pm tip-off against North Carolina Central.
