If the Lady Vols can put two halves together, Tennessee has a shot to win on senior day and rattle some cages in postseason, but it’s been a tough slide in the SEC in February.

Tennessee fell, 89-73, to LSU on Thursday night after trailing by just two at halftime, 43-42, and taking a slim lead to start the third quarter. The first half went the Lady Vols’ way as they frustrated the Tigers into playing their style, leading LSU coach Kim Mulkey to call it “kamikaze” basketball at halftime.

But LSU flipped the rebounding script in the second half after the Lady Vols dominated the offensive glass for the first 20 minutes and held off a final Tennessee push in the fourth quarter to seal the win.

“We were sharing the ball, we were moving the ball as a team,” Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell said. “We were doing a really good job on the offensive glass. They really picked up their effort at the rim, and we gave up a lot of second-chance points, and we gave up a lot of offensive rebounds. I mean, there was a couple possessions where they got three or four in a row on us.”

Jaida Civil led Tennessee (16-11, 8-7) with 17 points, while Nya Robertson notched 14 points, Talaysia Cooper tallied 13 points, and Mia Pauldo added nine points. Civil and Alyssa Latham grabbed eight rebounds each. Zee Spearman posted seven points, five rebounds and one block.

Zee Spearman challenges a shot by LSU. (Tennessee Athletics)

Mikaylah Williams led LSU (25-4, 11-4) with 20 points, while MiLaysia Fulwiley notched 18 points, ZaKiyah Johnson tallied 14 points, Grace Knox posted 13 points, and Flau’jae Johnson added 10 points.

LSU honored its seniors on Thursday. Tennessee will do the same this Sunday, March 1, and will host Vanderbilt at 3 p.m. at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center for the final regular season and home game. Maybe the conclusion of February will help as the Lady Vols have lost five consecutive SEC games.

Last weekend, former Lady Vol Andraya Carter, now an ESPN GameDay broadcaster, criticized Caldwell and how the season has unfolded. Caldwell was asked about her reaction after the LSU game.

“I think that it’s fair for the most critical people of this program to be the people who have built this program, and it’s hard for me to get upset with a lot of critique when I’m my biggest critic,” Caldwell said. “And I know that things aren’t going the way that they need to be going.

“I’m not leaving work every day, happy and satisfied and patting myself on the back. No one in our program is. We have a program full of love, we have a program full of honesty, and we know that, and I think that that’s why they’ve been able to be so resilient through this.”

The Lady Vols have needed that resilience to keep going without getting the results on the final scoreboard. Tennessee had its shot against Oklahoma late in the fourth quarter last Sunday. The Lady Vols stayed with LSU for much of the game and then chopped an 18-point deficit in the fourth quarter to just 10 in about two minutes.

“We talked about that at the end of the game,” Caldwell said. “It seems like almost every game we go in, we have conversations. They say it, they repeat it back, and then we come on the floor and we don’t do it. So, trying to continue to grow and stick together when the other team goes on a run, because we always have a run in us.”

The last chance of the regular season comes at home against a bitter in-state rival.

“We’ve just got to continue to try to put it together,” Caldwell said.”

Maria M. Cornelius, a senior writer/editor at MoxCar Marketing + Communications since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press and a 10th anniversary edition will be released June 16, 2026.