The Lady Vols got Mia Pauldo back after two weeks in concussion protocol and 29 points from Janiah Barker, but it wasn’t enough to overtake Texas A&M.

The 82-74 loss on Thursday night brought 10,039 fans trying to will a comeback. Tennessee cut a 19-point second half deficit to two points with 2:07 left in the game, but the Aggies pushed the lead to four and slipped out of Knoxville with the win.

“We got in too big of a hole to start the game, and then coming out, I think we clawed our way back to start the second, and didn’t really come out of the locker room at halftime,” Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell said. “Got ourselves in a hole again, and then once again, ran out of time down the stretch to try to fight our way back.”

The Lady Vols offered no excuses, but it was the third game in five days that included a trip to Ole Miss, and Tennessee hasn’t had a day off this week or even time for a full practice with one day between games. Friday will be a mandatory day off by NCAA rules and then a plane ride Saturday to play at Oklahoma on Sunday.

“We have to have a day off,” said Caldwell, whose post-game presser can be watched HERE. “We’ll have another one-day prep going into Oklahoma. We’ll do a lot of it with film. We’ll do a lot of it with breakdown.”

The Aggies opened with a 10-0 lead, and the Lady Vols never led in the game.

“We didn’t keep the ball in front of us,” Caldwell said. “We got caught on a lot of scout-specific things. We talk a lot in this program about two dribbles, keep the ball in front of you, try to get them to pick it up in two bounces, and they go nowhere, and we didn’t do that very well tonight.”

Tennessee is now 16-9 overall and 8-5 in the SEC with three consecutive losses. The final three games are at Oklahoma and LSU and then senior day on March 1 against Vanderbilt. The Lady Vols aren’t favored in any of those games, but an 8-8 record in the brutal SEC usually equates to an NCAA bid.

Zee Spearman, who was in an offensive slump the previous four games tallied 14 points, so that’s a good sign for Tennessee.

“I think that’s one of the consistencies that we need, and she’s one of the ones that needs to be a consistent scorer for us, and a consistent defender for us,” Caldwell said. “I think she’s one of our best defenders, if not our best defender, and so we need that out of her going forward.”

Talaysia Cooper, who logged 58 minutes against Texas and Ole Miss, added 11 points. The Lady Vols made 10 threes, shot 80 percent from the line and nipped the Aggies on the glass, 33-31.

Ny’Ceara Pryor led Texas A&M (11-11, 4-9) with 22 points while Fatmata Janneh tallied 17 points, and Lemyah Hylton added 12 points. The Aggies made 11 three-pointers and shot 57.9 percent from the arc.

Pauldo missed three games and also was out of all basketball activities for two weeks. She logged 12 minutes against Texas A&M and will ease back in to live action. Twin sister Mya Pauldo played nearly 19 minutes.

Barker, who played two seasons at Texas A&M, was perfect from the arc at 5-5 and the line at 6-6. She also completed the double-double with 10 boards and added two blocks.

“She was really efficient for us offensively,” Caldwell said. “I think she was the only player in the first half that had an offensive rebound. She was taking good shots, she was playing at pace, they were doing a good job of finding her, and we need multiple people to step up.

“I like it when our stat line is a whole lot more balanced, and again, I’m proud of her and her game, but we need consistency throughout the team.”

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.