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Women’s SEC Power Rankings for Jan. 16: Did loss drop Lady Vols?

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - JANUARY 24: Tennessee Volunteers students celebrate after defeating the Kentucky Wildcats at Thompson-Boling Arena on January 24, 2017 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennessee defeated Kentucky 82-80. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - JANUARY 24: Tennessee Volunteers students celebrate after defeating the Kentucky Wildcats at Thompson-Boling Arena on January 24, 2017 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennessee defeated Kentucky 82-80. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images
Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images /

The Tennessee Lady Vols lost their first game of the season last year. See if it cost the Volunteers in this week’s women’s basketball SEC Power Rankings.

After suffering their first loss of the season but also having their most impressive win of the year, it’s hard to get a read on where to place the Tennessee Lady Vols in our SEC Power Rankings this week. So, like any rankings, we worked them around the success or failure of other teams.

This year, the conference is loaded. Currently there are seven teams in the Top 50 of the RPI and another two who would be on the NCAA Tournament bubble if the season ended today. One more Top 100 team is 11-6 with a chance to build on that going forward.

Simply put, there are 10 teams in the conference who have a legitimate chance to make the Big Dance, and if the season ended today, seven would surely be while potentially nine could make it. That’s pretty impressive.

Already, teams have completely thrown our SEC Power Rankings for a loop by scoring big upsets while others suffered close losses. Key injuries have also affected how the teams stack up now.

As always, these rankings are based on how teams are playing at this exact moment, not where we project they will finish. And we still put emphasis on recent head to head match-ups.

But margin of victory, record, schedule strength, and where games were played all come into account. What’s clear, though, is that with one undefeated team there is an obvious No. 1. And with only one winless conference team, there is an obvious No. 14.

The rest of the teams can easily be separated into tiers. But exactly how they stack up against each other is still difficult. So let’s break that down here. These are our women’s basketball SEC Power Rankings for Jan. 16.