Tennessee Lady Vols Unranked in AP Poll for 1st Time in 31 Years

For the first time in over three decades, the Tennessee Lady Volunteers basketball team doesn't claim a place in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll.  

The AP unveiled its most recent batch of rankings Monday, and the Lady Vols were conspicuously absent. According to the AP, Tennessee's 31-year run of being in the Top 25 ended at 565 weeks.

ESPN Stats & Info put the streak in perspective:

Andrew Das of the New York Times believes the record speaks to Tennessee and women's college basketball as a whole:

Tennessee lost its stranglehold on women's college basketball in Pat Summitt's final years at the helm, with the Connecticut Huskies taking the program's place atop the sport's summit. Still, the Lady Vols made two Elite Eights and the Sweet 16 in head coach Holly Warlick's first three seasons. 

Warlick had to replace last year's top two leading scorers, Ariel Massengale and Isabelle Harrison, both of whom were selected in the 2015 WNBA draft, but the team still ranked fourth in both the preseason AP and USA Today Coaches Polls.

Tennessee reached a nadir this year in Sunday's 57-56 loss to the LSU Tigers, who had eight wins on the year entering the game. According to Dan Fleser of the Knoxville News Sentinel, the Tigers were down to six scholarship players at one point this season as a result of injuries, forcing head coach Nikki Fargas to bring in three walk-ons.

All is not lost for the Lady Vols, though. ESPN.com's Charlie Creme still projects the team to be a No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament, and Tennessee can close out the regular season with some nice momentum if it beats the Alabama Crimson Tide and Georgia Bulldogs in its final two games.