ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Tennessee barely extended its streak of March Madness appearance and the Lady Vols’ trip to the NCAA Tournament didn’t last very long.
No. 7 North Carolina State ended the 10th-seeded Lady Vols’ season with a 76-61 victory in the first round Friday night.
Tennessee which has played in every NCAA Tournament since its creation in 1982 had only been knocked out twice previously in the first game of the tourney – in 2009 by Ball State and in 2019 by UCLA.
“Really not the season we wanted, but it doesn’t really help us to get into that right now,” said second-year Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell when asked about what happened this season. “Trying to enjoy our seniors for the last little bit that we have them.”
It was an uncharacteristic season for the Lady Vols (16-14), who closed the year with the school’s first eight-game losing streak in the modern era and went winless in March. Their last victory was Feb. 12 against Missouri.
“It was the worst year of my professional career,” Caldwell said. “Our players deserve better than that from me, and you learn from that going forward.
“There was never clear leadership on my part of hey, this is exactly what we’re going to do. This is why we’re going to do it. We never got consistent rotations.”
Players, some with tears in their eyes, expressed their disappointment of how the year ended.
“Of course it sucks to lose any game, but this game our season is over and it sucks even more,” said Tennessee junior forward Alyssa Latham. “We tried our best today to extend our season but it didn’t go the way we wanted to.”
Pat Summitt, who won eight NCAA championships with the Lady Vols, had 23 seasons with six or less losses. This year’s team equaled the most defeats since the 2015-16 season and had the fewest wins for an at-large team since 2018, which led to Tennessee’s worst seeding since 2019.
The Lady Vols fell behind by 19-4 early in the game and clawed back to within 48-46 late in the third quarter but that was as close as they could get the rest of the way.
“We just had a rough patch,” said senior Zee Spearman. “We just couldn’t get out of it. Honestly, we tried our best. But at the end of the day, this didn’t work out the way we wanted it to.”
On the eve of their first-round game, Caldwell called out her players and staff.
“Our players are very spoiled,” Caldwell said. “Our coaching staff is very spoiled. The way we do things is first class, it’s high class. It’s really remarkable at how quickly anyone can get spoiled and used to it.”
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
