Another single-digit loss, another drop in AP top 25 for the Kentucky Wildcats
Another narrow loss for Kenny Brooks and the Kentucky Wildcats, another drop in the women’s college basketball Associated Press Top 25.
No. 18 Kentucky (18-6, 5-5 SEC) fell two spots in this week’s poll after a disappointing 84-83 loss to Vanderbilt on Thursday in Lexington.
“Obviously very disappointed with the outcome,” Brooks said after the loss. “If you want to win a basketball game, that nature of playing against one of the best teams in the country, you have to minimize your mistakes and, about us, we lost focus (on) several possessions, had careless turnovers, careless miscommunications that could have been rectified if we had just communicated.”
In a game that featured seven lead changes, a UK had a 10-point advantage in paint points. and four Wildcats contributed double-figure scoring.
The recently-returned Teonni Key had a career performance of 27 points and 12 rebounds, National Center of the Year candidate Clara Strack posted 14 points, 14 rebounds and seven assists, sharpshooting Aussie Amelia Hassett added 19 points and reserve guard Asia Boone scored 12 points.
However, Kentucky also turned the ball over 20 times — a stark contrast to the Commodores’ six — and repeatedly shot itself in the foot despite leading for more than 16 minutes.
National Player of the Year candidate Mikayla Blakes had 11 points at the half for Vanderbilt and came alive in the second half to finish with 37 points to pair with her final two rebounds, four assists and four steals. Blakes, who ranks second in the country in points per game at 25.6, always finds a way to get hers; Brooks said he and his staff expected the sophomore to be the answer for the Commodores but that their Wildcats’ miscommunication gave Blakes more opportunities than they’d hoped.
“(Head coach Shea Ralph) runs some of the best stuff in the league,” Brooks said. “But we know when it gets down to crunch (time), they’re giving (Blakes) the ball and getting out of play, and we had some miscommunications. We really did. We probably had about five times that I can remember where we needed to do something different and we allowed her to get going, and then you’d probably add in the outlet passes that led to a couple of 3s that they got. Those are things that will haunt us for a long time that we need to clean up.”
Now .500 in SEC play, the Wildcats’ remaining regular-season schedule features “should-win” matchups such as Texas A&M and Auburn, and games against ranked opponents Texas, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt.
The Wildcats will vie for their third top-5 victory Monday night with a 7:30 p.m. ET game at No. 4 Texas. ESPN analytics gives Kentucky just a 9.8% chance to win the game.
Thanks to its win in Vandy’s first battle with the Wildcats, No. 5 Vanderbilt improved two spots in this week’s poll. Kentucky and Vanderbilt are, yet again, two of nine SEC teams ranked in the AP Top 25.
No. 4 Texas (22-2) remained at No. 4 after a payback defeat of LSU last week, and the No. 6 Tigers (22-3) fell one spot. No. 10 Oklahoma (17-5) improved one place and returned to the AP top 10 despite an idle week.
No. 14 Mississippi (19-5) fell one spot after a one-point loss at Alabama and a 71-45 rout of Auburn. No. 22 Tennessee (15-6) dropped three spots thanks to an overtime win at Georgia and a 43-point loss — the worst loss in the history of Lady Vols basketball — at South Carolina.
No. 23 Alabama (20-5) dropped two spots despite upsetting Ole Miss, due to a puzzling 3-point loss at Texas A&M.
Georgia also received top-25 votes, making the Bulldogs as the third team out this week.
Caroline Makauskas’ Team of the Week
The Longhorns find themselves in elite company this season. In my mind, no more than five teamscould go all the way once postseason play begins, and the Longhorns are among them.
Though only Connecticut stands undefeated, UCLA boasts 13 victories designated as ‘Quadrant 1’ by the NCAA NET rankings. And both of the Southeastern Conference’s worthy challengers, South Carolina and Texas, benefit from their intense league schedule.
Texas, ranked in the AP top four each week this season, peaked at No. 2 between Weeks 5 and 9 following the Players Era Championship in Las Vegas, following consecutive-days victories over the Bruins — still UCLA’s only loss of the year at this point — and Gamecocks.
Injuries have plagued Texas, which entered the season knowing it would be without veteran forward Aaliyah Moore for the year due to surgery recovery. Even apart from Moore, head man Vic Schaefer has coached the majority of this year’s campaign without a full complement of players.
Missouri transfer Ashton Judd wasn’t available until Texas’ 13th game of the season, and depth pieces like sophomore reserves Bryanna Preston and Justice Carlton and Boston College transfer Teya Sidberry have found themselves listed as ‘OUT’ on the availability report at one point or another throughout the 2025-26 campaign.
Breakout freshman guard Aaliyah Crump — the team’s lone first-year and the No. 5 overall recruit in the class of 2025 — is an emphatic answer to critics circling the team’s lack of 3-point shooters, but she missed 15 games with a foot injury and did not return until Jan. 18.
Still, Texas’ stumbles have come as single-digit losses in enemy territory, a one-two punch of LSU and South Carolina on Jan. 11 and Jan. 15, respectively. After the LSU loss, Schaefer made his feelings known about the scheduling, citing what he believed to be the conference’s “vendetta” against the Longhorns. Unsurprisingly, the complaints from the coach of the then-No. 2 team in the land were not well received by many.
But Texas has managed to rebound, winning four straight since the South Carolina loss, including last week’s dominant revenge victory against LSU in Austin.
Outside the obvious advantages making the Texas-LSU rematch different for the Longhorns — home-court advantage, a healthy Crump — it was point guard and longtime team leader Rori Harmon who had the biggest impact in the win. Harmon was benched for the fourth quarter of the first matchup due to poor performance, and watched as her team fell short.
Against the Tigers on Thursday, Harmon posted one of the best performances of her career, highlighting precisely why the Longhorns are such a title threat through relentless defense. LSU, which leads the nation in points per game at 96.6, was held to just 64 points in the 13-point defeat.
Harmon played 33 minutes, contributing 11 points, 1 rebound, 5 assists and 6 steals; she also became the program’s all-time steals leader in the process.
The Longhorns rank fifth nationally in scoring at 87.8 points per game, fifth nationally in field-goal percentage at 50.6% and third nationally in points differential at +33.0. They are also tied for second — alongside Louisville (7-4) and Ohio State (7-3) — in Quadrant 1 wins (7-2) behind UCLA, with an opportunity Monday night against Kentucky to take sole ownership of second place.
Schaefer’s regular 10-player rotation has each athlete averaging at least 15 minutes and 5 points per game. Six players — Harmon (9.2), Carlton (9.2), Crump (13.3), center Kyla Oldacre (11.2), sophomore guard Jordan Lee (13.5) and First-Team All-American Madison Booker (19.0) — average at least 9 points per game.
Now one game behind South Carolina in the SEC standings, Texas faces another difficult week. After the Longhorns play Kentucky, they’ll travel to The Volunteer State for a Thursday date at Vanderbilt and a Sunday matchup at Tennessee; each team also has just two conference losses.
As it currently stands, four of Texas’ seven remaining regular-season games are against top-25 opponents.
Caroline Makauskas’ Top 25 ballot: No. 1 Connecticut, No. 2 UCLA, No. 3 South Carolina, No. 4 Texas, No. 5 Michigan, No. 6 Ohio State, No. 7 LSU, No. 8 Vanderbilt, No. 9 Duke, No. 10 Louisville, No. 11 Oklahoma, No. 12 Baylor, No. 13 Michigan State, No. 14 North Carolina, No. 15 Mississippi, No. 16 Texas Tech, No. 17 TCU, No. 18 Maryland, No. 19 Iowa, No. 20 West Virginia, No. 21 Washington, No. 22 Kentucky, No. 23 Tennessee, No. 24 Princeton, No. 25 Alabama.
