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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 Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images /

Last week: Lost to the Texas A&M Aggies; Defeated the South Carolina Gamecocks

Last rank: 2nd

One terrible coaching decision by Holly Warlick and a series of freshman mistakes by Evina Westbrook are what dropped this team to No. 3 in our SEC Power Rankings. There’s no way around it.

The Tennessee Lady Vols should be 17-0 right now heading into their toughest stretch with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on the road and then the Mississippi State Bulldogs at home. They blew that game to the Texas A&M Aggies on the road in overtime.

Nonetheless, they didn’t do enough to drop too much. That’s because the Lady Vols barely lost on the road to a very good team. Meanwhile, they came back to beat the South Carolina Gamecocks on the road in convincing fashion.

Now, that should have been enough to keep them at No. 2. But South Carolina was without A’ja Wilson, so we couldn’t give this team as much credit as they would have deserved because of that.

Still, the Lady Vols are finally moving up in the RPI because of their improving strength of schedule. They are now No. 9 with the No. 40 ranked schedule strength. And that’s about to jump significantly again this week.

As we mentioned, Notre Dame and Mississippi State are up next on their brutal four-game stretch. We said they need a 2-2 split. Well, they’re 1-1 right now and should be 2-0. These next two games could assert them as a Top 5 team in the nation and true national title contender.