It’s only a matter of weeks until the Tennessee Volunteers and Lady Volunteers take the court for the start of basketball season. Both the Men’s and Women’s squads will be ranked nationally heading into the 2025-26 season.
Rick Barnes’ and his squad will enter this season ranked 18th in country as announced on Monday. This is the sixth consecutive season the Volunteers open as an AP top-20 team, dating to the 2020-21 campaign. The Vols will start the season on November 3rd against Mercer, but have a marquee exhibition game against #6 Duke on October 26th in Knoxville.
Kim Caldwell’s Lady Vols are going to enter the year in the top ten as they were ranked 8th Tuesday morning. With this ranking, the Lady Vols now have appeared in 795 out of the 886 polls that the organization has conducted dating back to 1976. UT ranks first in appearances by a significant amount over its nearest pursuers, Stanford (646), Texas (643) and UConn (640). It also marks the 46th time in 50 seasons the Big Orange women have earned a spot in the preseason poll, including 39 times inside the top 10. The #8 Lady Vols open the season against #9 North Carolina State on November 4th.
You’ll be able to hear coverage of the Vols on 102.5 WOW Country and the Lady Vols on MIX 99.3 when they begin conference play in January.