The Lady Vols took the first loss in SEC play Thursday night in a rematch against Mississippi State in a game where Tennessee never seemed to get engaged in the outcome.
“I think that was pretty clear from the very beginning of the game,” Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell said. “I knew it in shoot-around that it was going be bad. It was going to be ugly. I didn’t think it was going to be that ugly. They outworked us, they out-toughed us, start to finish.”
Talaysia Cooper led Tennessee (14-4, 6-1) with 19 points, while Mia Pauldo notched 13 points, Janiah Barker tallied 10 points, and Zee Spearman added nine points.
Kharyssa Richardson led Mississippi State (16-6, 3-5) with 21 points, while Trayanna Crisp tallied 15 points, Madison Francis added 12 points and 10 boards, and Favour Nwaedozi notched 11 points and 14 boards. The Bulldogs have now beaten two ranked teams in Kentucky and Tennessee in January.
The Lady Vols won two weeks ago again at Mississippi State in a game that wasn’t decided until late in the fourth quarter in Starkville.
“I think their heads got a little bit big,” said Caldwell, whose post-game presser can be watched HERE. “They thought they beat them once and that they were going to walk in and beat ’em again, and they put it right to us.”
The first two quarters went back-and-forth as Mississippi State kept turning over the ball, and the Lady Vols kept missing shots. Mississippi went on a 9-0 run to end the second quarter, led 35-26 at halftime and never trailed again as the Bulldogs turned back any attempt by Tennessee to mount a comeback.
Zee Spearman gets to rim to start the game. (Tennessee Athletics)
“I think the prep leading up, people not wanting to play, not listening, having to go back to repeating ourselves and being late to warmups,” Caldwell said. “Things like that were kind of a slap in the face. This was a game I knew we really needed to win. We talked about that. We talked about it’s SEC night, you have to show up every single night and play.”
The Lady Vols had not played a game in a week because the ice storm in North Mississippi wiped out a trip to play at Ole Miss on Monday. While the practices earlier in the week had been good, Wednesday’s session wasn’t and Thursday’s game-day shootaround was abysmal.
Caldwell will have to get her team back in a groove quickly, as the Lady Vols play at No. 1 UConn on Sunday, Feb. 1. She also accepted responsibility for how the team played.
“I told them this in shoot-around, ‘I have not seen this version of you in about 20, 25 days,’ ” Caldwell said. “It started to creep back in. It’s my fault. I’m the coach. I can sit here and be frustrated all I want with them.
“But if I’m seeing it, it’s my job to fix it, and obviously I didn’t fix it.”
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.
