KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Eight players scored in double figures, helping propel Tennessee women’s basketball past Florida A&M, 132-63, in an exhibition game on Tuesday night in front of a crowd of 9,926 at Food City Center.
Facing a Rattlers squad coached by LVFL Bridgette Gordon, whose jersey banner hangs from the venue’s rafters, the Lady Vols used an extremely fast pace on offense and intense pressure on defense to roll up 37 points in the first quarter and 40 in the second period en route to a 77-27 lead at the intermission. UT put up 48 shots by halftime and finished with an astounding 101 attempts, making 49 of them on their way to a 48.5 percent shooting night. Kim Caldwell‘s troops also connected at a 92-percent rate from the free-throw line, knocking down 23 of 25 tries.
Fifth-year guard Kaylene Smikle led all scorers with 19 points, followed by junior Naomi White with 16 and senior Riley Makalusky and sophomore Harissoum Coulibaly with 14 each. Also hitting double digits for the Big Orange were junior Jada Eads with 13, freshman Gabby Minus with 12, sophomore Zhen Craft with 11 and fifth-year Kennedy Fauntleroy with 10.
Senior Fats Janneh pulled down 13 rebounds to help her squad out-board FAMU, 58-25, including 30-4 on the offensive glass. White had a game-high seven of UT’s 26 assists and no turnovers for a team that committed nine miscues to FAMU’s 37.
The Rattlers were paced by Tahnyjia Purifoy and Kamryn Grant, who had 13 points each. Niah Rhodes added 11.
A White three pointer and a layup from Coulibaly staked Tennessee to an early 5-0 lead, but Florida A&M struck back and pulled to within one at 7-6 with 7:51 remaining. Aaliyah Moore tallied four quick points to help the Lady Vols push ahead 16-10 by the 4:42 media timeout. The Lady Vols put on more steam out of the break, getting treys from White, Smikle and Eads to reel off 17 straight points and extend their run to 21-0 in building a 33-10 lead with 2:01 remaining. Layups by Fauntleroy and Coulibaly sent the Big Orange into the second frame with a 37-14 advantage.
After the Rattlers opened the second stanza with two quick buckets to cut the gap to 37-19, White scored on a layup and drained her third three of the game to halt the mini run from the visitors. Less than a minute later, Zhen Craft added a layup to force a FAMU timeout with 7:43 to go with UT on top, 44-21. A Rylie Theuerkauf three-ball and a pair of free throws started another Tennessee spree, with the Lady Vols outscoring the Rattlers 33-6 the rest of the way to carry a 77-27 cushion into the locker room.
A Minus layup, threes by Smikle and White and a layup by Smikle extended the Big Orange lead to a then-game-high 56 points, at 87-31, with 8:02 remaining in the third period. Florida A&M, though, responded with a 9-4 burst to cut the deficit to 91-40 by the 4:31 media timeout. Tennessee punched back and extended its lead to 58, getting a pair of Makalusky layups, a Coulibaly bucket and a Fauntleroy jumper to close out the quarter with a 103-45 lead.
Tennessee opened the fourth with a Makalusky layup and closed a 19-7 run with a three-pointer from the senior to send the Lady Vols into the 4:43 media timeout with a 124-52 lead. UT pushed its lead to as many as 74 with 3:55 to go and closed out the victory with 13 of 14 players getting into the scoring column and also pulling down at least one rebound.
NEXT UP
Tennessee will open the regular season next Monday night, Nov. 2, as Duquesne comes to Knoxville for a 6:30 p.m. ET match-up. The contest will be streamed on SECN+.
PLETHORA OF SCORING
In the program’s first exhibition ever against an NCAA Division I program, the Lady Vols scored their fifth-highest point total in a preseason game with 132 against the Rattlers. It was the 28th time Tennessee has tallied over 100 in an exhibition game, and Caldwell’s teams have gone three for three hitting that mark.
LADY VOLS IN EXHIBITIONS
With the win, the Big Orange are now 55-5 all-time in preseason games and 15-1 in the post-Pat Summitt era, with the only losses coming to the Soviet National Team (1979), Athletes in Action (1992) and the USA National Team (1995, 2007, 2023).
SEVERAL SCORERS
UT had eight different players in double figures vs. FAMU, including Zhen Craft, Naomi White, Kennedy Fauntleroy, Harissoum Coulibaly, Kaylene Smikle, Gabby Minus, Jada Eads and Riley Makalusky. The last time the Lady Vols had that many double-digit scorers was on Nov. 5, 2018, in the 128-59 win over Carson-Newman.
