October means basketball season is close because television times are released, SEC and local media days dot the calendar and single game tickets are on sale. Tennessee fans will have two ways to watch hoops with the Lady Vols, of course, and also Athletes Unlimited (AU) Pro Basketball, which will play its fourth season in Nashville this winter.

AU Basketball announced in October that former Lady Vol Isabelle Harrison, who is from Nashville, will be in the league, as will her younger sister Dorie Harrison, who played at Kentucky and Lipscomb and is an AU Basketball veteran.

“Since finishing my career at the University of Tennessee, I’ve always felt there was a need for a professional women’s league in the state of Tennessee,” Isabelle Harrison said. “It may not be in Knoxville, but what better place to bring such an amazing league than Nashville. I’m looking forward to the turnout and so excited for the city to experience what AU Pro basketball is all about.”

“Nashville is where we grew up and experienced many battles and championships,” Dorie Harrison said. “My family and friends are a big part of my ‘why,’ so the excitement is indescribable. It’s an honor to play the game I love in front of the people I love the most. God is doing something big in Nashville and it starts with AU.”

The hype video is worth a watch.

The full roster and schedule, including broadcast information, game dates and times, will be announced later.

At least one other former Lady Vol will be in Nashville in Jordan Horston, who mentioned it during an end-of-the-season interview in Seattle. Horston just completed her second year in the WNBA with the Storm and is now in New Zealand to play for the Tokomanawa Queens until the end of the year. Former Lady Vol Tamari Key also is playing for the Queens.

In 2024, former Lady Vols Rae Burrell and Bashaara Graves also played AU Basketball – which offers U.S. players an option to not have to be overseas all winter.

Former Lady Vols Isabelle “Izzy” Harrison, Rickea Jackson, Diamond DeShields and Rae Burrell.

The league, which played in Dallas in 2024, revealed the 2025 location in September. The 24-game schedule will be played at Nashville Municipal Auditorium from Feb. 5 to March 2 with doubleheaders on game day. Group and season ticket deposits can be made now by clicking HERE.

“The city of Nashville has been so enthusiastic and welcoming to us, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to bring Athletes Unlimited Pro Basketball to Music City,” said Megan Perry, director of sport, basketball, for AU. “Tennessee has long been a hotbed for women’s basketball as the home of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and its rich history at the collegiate level, highlighted by Pat Summitt’s legacy.”

Harrison was on Summitt’s final team in 2011-12 and is the last player in the WNBA to have played for Summitt after the retirement of Candace Parker last spring. She posted this on her social media when the Nashville news first was announced: Momma, IM COMING HOME!!! 615 baby

Meanwhile, back in Knoxville, season ticket sales for Lady Vols basketball have exceeded 7,000 for the first time in eight years in a story that can be read HERE. The SEC released on Thursday the full television times and networks for women’s basketball that is available HERE. For those just needing Tennessee’s schedule, the Lady Vols website is updated, too, with times and network and is HERE.

Football still takes center stage, and the Vols are hosting bitter rival Florida this Saturday. The Lady Vols are hosting four elite recruits the next two weekends – the timing is also tied to being able to go to the football games and experience that environment – in a story that can be read HERE.

It’s clearly also basketball time in Tennessee.

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.