After playing five of the last seven SEC games on the road, the Lady Vols finally have a homestand with the next three at home.

“I think it’s nice that we’re home for a little while,” Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell said. “It’s rest that we need just by not traveling. I feel like we’ve been on the road a lot.”

First up is Auburn on Thursday, Feb. 13, at 6:30 pm. at Thompson-Boling Arena. It also will be Tennessee’s Play4Kay game, which raises awareness about all cancers affecting women and raises funds for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. A legendary coach at NC State, Kay Yow died of breast cancer in 2009.

The Lady Vols will host Ole Miss on Sunday, Feb. 16, at noon in the annual Black History Month game. That will be followed by Alabama on Thursday, Feb. 20, at 6:30 p.m.

“We have three really good opponents coming up,” Caldwell said. “That’s what the SEC is. Everyone gives you something different, but everything’s physical. And if we don’t fix our rebounds, we’re going to be living the same song and dance over and over.”

Caldwell was speaking right after Tennessee’s 82-77 loss last Sunday to LSU in Baton Rouge. Just like the 89-87 loss in Knoxville in January, the game was decided in the final minute and ultimately on the glass. The Tigers had a 41-37 edge on the boards and won second-chance points, 16-11. The game also was decided at the free throw line. LSU went 20-22; Tennessee was 13-20.

Granted, the Tigers are 25-1 overall and 10-1 in the SEC. Tennessee is 17-6 overall and 4-6 in the SEC. On paper, it looks like a wide gap. But the Lady Vols have been in position to win these games, and the margin for error is razor thin. A couple more rebounds and three additional made free throws becomes the difference in a win or a loss.

“All frustrating,” Caldwell said.

Tennessee needs to hold court at home this month to improve its SEC tourney seeding and remain in contention to host the early rounds of the NCAA tourney – a possibility because of its NET rank of No. 12. After hosting a trio of SEC teams, Tennessee gets back on the road for games at Florida on Feb. 23 and Kentucky on Feb. 27.

The regular season finale will be in Knoxville on March 2 against Georgia. The SEC tourney starts a few days after that.

A bright spot on the boards was sophomore Alyssa Lathan, who grabbed eight rebounds against LSU. Talaysia Cooper collected seven rebounds, and Spearman tallied six boards. Spearman has elevated her game on both ends of late – which is a nod both to her work and the staff’s development of the 6-4 junior.

“I think her mindset has been different,” Caldwell said. “I think she’s been good in practice. I think she comes in level-headed. I think her focus is winning the game, and when she is in the right head space, and she just puts winning above everything else, she’s really great for our team.”

The Lady Vols also have gotten better at boxing out, especially Spearman, and the next step is to secure the rebound.

“I feel like we focus so much on rebounding, sometimes we lose track of where our person is,” Spearman said. “Now that we’re boxing out, we need to just release and go get it.”

Jewel Spear launches a three against LSU. (Kate Luffman/ Tennessee Athletics)

Tennessee definitely has the scoring pieces in place. Ruby Whitehorn led Tennessee against LSU with 21 points, Jewel Spear notched 19 points, Talaysia Cooper tallied 16 points, and Spearman added 15 points. Spear’s back-to-back threes in the second quarter tied and broke the Lady Vols’ program record for made threes in a single season with 243 in just 23 games. The previous record was 242 treys in 37 games in 2010-11.

“It’s amazing how multiple people can turn up and show out every night, and you know that they’re going to be consistent – as long as we stay together and make sure that we always put our work in and never get down on each other,” Spearman said.

Losing close games is frustrating, as Caldwell noted. Tennessee could have been competing for a top four seed in the SEC tourney and a double bye. Instead, it needs to win the majority of its last six games to at least position itself for one bye to start on a Thursday and not a Wednesday at the SEC tourney. The one seeds are rested and waiting on Friday for the first opponent.

“Next play, make sure we stay locked in,” Spearman said. “Make sure we have our heads and just continue to play hard and never give up.”

TENNIS: The Lady Vols are scorching the courts with a 6-1 record and national ranking of No. 13. The latest victory came last Sunday in Evanston, Illinois at the ITA National Team Indoor Championship with a 4-2 defeat of No. 4 Stanford.

“What a weekend,” coach Alison Ojeda said. “This team just keeps getting better and better every time we compete. What is exciting is that they are hungry for more.”

SEC play starts next for the Lady Vols with the opener at Kentucky this Saturday, Feb. 16.

SOFTBALL: The Lady Vols opened the 2025 season at the NFCA Classic in Clearwater, Florida, last week and returned home with a 5-1 record and four run-rule wins, including against a ranked Northwestern team.

Redshirt freshman Ella Dodge blasted her first career home home in the 12-1 win over Northwestern in the second inning and added another two-run homer in the third.

The one loss came to No. 19 Nebraska and ace Jordy Bahl, one of the best pitchers in the country and a two-time NFCA First Team All-American.

Tennessee will stay on the road for two games against McNeese State in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on Friday, Feb. 14, and then a trip to Beaumont, Texas, for games against Tulsa, Lamar and Nicholls on Feb. 15-16.

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.