Michigan women hosting March Madness for 2nd time at site with slumping Tennessee Lady Vols

Michigan (25-6) opens against 15th-seeded Holy Cross (23-9) on Friday night and barring an upset, the maize and blue will play the winner of the No. 7 N.C. State -No. 10 Tennessee matchup in the second round on Sunday.

The Lady Vols (16-13) enter March Madness with a seven-game losing streak for the first time since they started playing NCAA basketball in 1981.

“We've kind of hit a rough patch and trying to really identify who we are in March,” Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell said.

When Kim Barnes Arico left her job at St. John's — and much of her family — in 2012, she had modest goals upon arrival in Ann Arbor.

“Our goal was to make the NCAA Tournament,” she said. “It’s funny, my brother called me and he was like, `Do you remember your goal was to make the NCAA Tournament? Now you’re the team that people are coming after.'”

The Wolverines were No. 13 in the preseason AP Top 25 and they have been a top-10 team since the third poll of the season, putting them on track to tip off the tournament at home.

Unlike their experienced team four years ago that was led by first-team All-America player Naz Hillmon, the current squad has two sophomore stars and the third- and fourth-leading scorers are also in the same class.

Even though Michigan's top players are young, they don't lack confidence.

“We believe we can make it to the national championship,” third-team All-American Olivia Olson said.

The first step toward that lofty goal is a matchup with the Crusaders, who have won nine straight games.

“With that momentum, we’re ready to come here and compete,” senior forward Meg Cahalan said. ”It’s not something that’s overwhelming us."

Holy Cross won the Patriot League Tournament for the third time in four years and the Massachusetts-based school is shooting for a win in the round of 64 for the first time. Cahalan is averaging 15-plus points as the team’s only double-digit scorer and senior guard Kaitlyn Flanagan was named MVP of the league tournament after she had 16 points and nine assists in the final against Lehigh.

The Crusaders won a First Four game two years ago against UT Martin, the first women's tournament win for a Patriot League team, before losing to Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes on their home court.

Limping Lady Vols

Tennessee has earned a bid in every women's NCAA Tournament, but this year's invite wasn't a layup.

The program Pat Summitt led to eight national titles enters March Madness with a seven-game losing streak for the first time in the modern era and has dropped 10 of 12 games.

The Lady Vols in Caldwell's second season had the fewest wins for an at-large team since 2018 and that led to the program's worst seeding since 2019.

“We just had a lot of quit in us," Caldwell said last month after a 93-50 loss at South Carolina.

Tennessee (16-13) opened its disappointing season with a loss to N.C. State (20-10) and the stakes will be much higher in the rematch because the loser is going home.

Talaysia Cooper, the Lady Vols' leading scorer, was taken out of the team's last game midway through the third quarter and played a season-low 12 minutes in the loss to Alabama in the SEC Tournament. Cooper left the locker room with an assistant coach after the game.

Cooper said on Thursday that she wasn't told, and did not ask, why she was benched.

“It was coach's decision,” she said.

Caldwell was not any more forthcoming.

“We’re going to move on and I think we’ll get a really good version of her tomorrow,” she said.

The Wolfpack, with All-ACC players Khamil Pierre and Zoe Brooks, are in the tournament for a school-record ninth straight time and they're just two years removed from a Final Four appearance. Coach Wes Moore, who was mentored by Summitt, has 879 career victories and trails only Connecticut's Geno Auriemma in wins among active coaches.

In the season-opening game four-plus months ago, the Wolfpack beat Tennessee 80-77 in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“It just gives us another opportunity to show we're a better team,” Brooks said. “I think we're pretty comfortable going into tomorrow.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness