KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The ACC/SEC Women’s Basketball Challenge returns for the 2025-26 college basketball season, and so does a classic clash between historic rivals Tennessee and Stanford.
The Lady Vols, ranked No. 7 in ESPN’s Way-Too-Early Top 25, will travel to face the Cardinal on Wednesday, Dec. 3, at Maples Pavilion. The match-up will be one of 16 games scheduled over the course of two days featuring two of the premier conferences in women’s college basketball.
The contest follows previously-announced Big Orange women’s tilts for the upcoming season vs. NC State (Nov. 4 in Greensboro, N.C.) and vs. Louisville (Dec. 20 in Brooklyn, N.Y.).
This will mark the first occasion eight-time NCAA champion UT will meet the three-time NCAA champs since an unranked Big Orange squad fell to a No. 2 Cardinal team, 77-70, on Dec. 18, 2022. The Lady Vols, though, own a 25-14 all-time record in a series that began in 1988 and was discontinued after that 2022 meeting.
The 2025 ACC/SEC Women’s Basketball Challenge is slated to take place over Dec. 3-4. Games will be televised across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ACC Network and SEC Network, with specific designations to be announced later.
The Challenge finished the inaugural year in 2023 with a 7-7 tie between the leagues. The SEC, however, went 10-6 in the Women’s Challenge last season to bring the two-year total to 17-13. Tennessee earned one of the SEC’s triumphs in 2024, defeating a talented Florida State squad, 79-77, on Dec. 4 at Food City Center in Knoxville.
The Lady Vols, who are under the leadership of head coach Kim Caldwell for the second season, are coming off a 24-10 campaign that saw an exciting, fast-paced team advance to the NCAA Sweet 16 in her first campaign. That squad knocked off UConn during regular season and ended Ohio State’s perfect home court season winning streak during the NCAA Second Round, heightening anticipation on Rocky Top heading into 2025-26.
UT returns three of its top four scorers and rebounders, including junior guard and All-SEC Second Team/SEC All-Defensive Team performer Talaysia Cooper (16.6 ppg., 5.6 rpg., 3.2 apg., 3.1 spg.), senior forward Zee Spearman (11.7 ppg., 6.0 rpg.) and senior guard Ruby Whitehorn (11.6 ppg., 4.0 rpg., 1.7 apg.). Additionally, it welcomes back key 2024-25 contributors in junior forward Alyssa Latham (3.9 ppg., 3.7 rpg.) and redshirt sophomore guard Kaniya Boyd (4.0 ppg., 1.3 apg., 1.3 spg.).
Also expected to return to the court is redshirt senior guard Kaiya Wynn, who missed all of last season due to injury but averaged 4.4 ppg. and 2.6 rpg. in 2023-24 and has appeared in 94 contests for the Big Orange during her career. She is the only player on the roster to appear in a Tennessee-Stanford game, doing so in 2021-22 and 2022-23.
Caldwell and her staff also have recruited extremely well, adding a transfer portal class rated No. 1 by ESPN’s Charlie Creme and a high school signing group rated No. 1 or No. 2 in the nation by most analysts. The transfer class includes 6-foot-4 forward and Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year Janiah Barker of UCLA (7.4 ppg., 6.0 rpg., 1.4 apg.), 5-7 guard and All-ACC Second Team selection Nya Robertson of SMU (18.5 ppg., 62 3FGs, 111 FTs) and 6-5 forward Jersey Wolfenberger of LSU (4.6 ppg., 3.4 rpg., 63% FG). The stellar prep class includes McDonald’s All-Americans Mia Pauldo, Deniya Prawl and Jaida Civil, as well as Mia’s twin sister, Mya, and Lauren Hurst, all of whom rank among ESPN’s top 60 recruits in the class of 2025.
Stanford, which is unranked in the aforementioned ESPN poll, finished 16-15 a year ago during Kate Paye’s first season as head coach. The Cardinal, though, hopes to bounce back quickly by landing a consensus No. 3-rated 2025 recruiting haul, featuring a trio of players ranked among the nation’s top 21 and joining Tennessee as the only schools in the class to accomplish that feat.
