The Lady Vols will face the third ranked team of the season and will seek the first win over a top 25 foe in a neutral site matchup in New York.

No. 17/18 Tennessee, 7-2, and No. 16/17 Louisville, 11-3, will tip this Saturday, Dec. 20, at 11 a.m. in the Shark Beauty Women’s Champions Classic at the Barclays Center in  Brooklyn. The game will be nationally broadcast on FOX.

The first two ranked teams the Lady Vols played were NC State and UCLA. The three-point loss to the Wolfpack, then ranked No. 9/8 and now receiving votes in the top 25, came in the season opener in North Carolina. A 22-point loss to the No. 3-ranked Bruins came on the other side of the country in Los Angeles. The experience helped the team, especially the freshmen, and the outcome got the team’s attention. The next step is to win a ranked matchup.

“I think we know what it takes,” Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell said. “I think we know what it looks like. You know you have to value every possession. You know you have to take care of the ball. You know the rebounding is going to be important. So, it does help that we have some ranked games in big-time stages under our belt before we head to New York.”

Freshman guard Mia Pauldo earned double honors this week by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) as the Tamika Catchings National Co-Freshman of the Week and the SEC’s Co-Freshmen of the Week.

Pauldo turned the proverbial freshman corner during the West Coast trip, and another test awaits in New York. Her poise and confidence have been apparent, and media members have noticed.

“For me, I’ve always seen it,” Caldwell said. “So, what you guys are getting to see now, I see every day in practice. I’ve known she always had that. I knew that when we recruited her. It was only a matter of time.”

Pauldo has 23 assists and just seven turnovers. While her shooting percentages need to rise, she’s adept at the line – she shot and made the free throws after an assessed technical against Winthrop last Sunday – and is 10-12 overall so far this season.

“She’s not always going to shoot great, but she does not turn the ball over at a high clip,” Caldwell said. “She’s very poised, she creates shots for other people. She is a good shooter. She can score a little bit more at the rim, so we want to continue to get more out of her. But she’s a great player. And again, I’m not surprised.”

It’s a reminder that the Lady Vols are relying on freshmen quite a bit this season with Pauldo, Jaida Civil and Deniya Prawl all playing significant minutes. The path for freshmen should always be one of patience as they make the substantial leap from high school to college. As the late Al McGuire said, “The best thing about freshmen is they become sophomores.”

Pauldo’s twin sister, Mya Pauldo, also is working her way onto the court and has logged minutes in all nine games.

“I think she is a really good shooter for us in practice, just hitting them in games,” Caldwell said. “Really scrappy defender but cutting her fouls down so she can stay on the floor a little bit longer. She is somebody that just has great heart. She gets out there and she scraps and she’s not afraid of anyone or anything, and I think that that’s something you can’t teach.”

Jaida Civil, right, brings pressure with Janiah Barker (Kate Luffman/Tennessee Athletics)

Senior Zee Spearman, who joined the Lady Vols as a junior, also had to learn to stop fouling so quickly when she took the court.

“She has really cut her fouls down this year, whereas this time last year she was getting sat almost every game, close game or not, because she was in foul trouble,” Caldwell said. “She’s learned how to guard at the rim without fouling.”

The Lady Vols will host Southern Indiana on Monday, Dec. 22, at 6:30 p.m. and then take a brief break for the holidays. Conference play is just two weeks away for Tennessee, which will host Florida on New Year’s Day at  2 p.m. What is the team’s readiness for the rugged SEC?

“I’ll have a much better answer to that after we play Louisville,” Caldwell said. “I think we’re getting better. I know we’re getting better. I really hope that we can take a step and beat a ranked opponent before we get into the thick of things.”

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.