“Do I think that I can beat Tennessee?” Middle Tennessee head coach Rick Insell said on Oct. 23, 2025. “Absolutely…I don’t know that I’ve ever gone in a game my entire career that I didn’t think I’d win.”
Middle Tennessee women’s basketball crashed on its way to a third straight lost after University of Tennessee dominated, 85-41 in a packed Murphy Center.
The Lady Vols played their style of hard nose press defense that forced MTSU to commit nine turnovers in the first quarter, the same number of points the Lady Raiders had at the time.
“Talked about not giving up,” Insell said of his halftime message. “We got to execute our offense, so we can’t execute that offense out there at 23 feet. And that we were allowing them to push us on out and that’s just toughness is what that boils down to.”
Tennessee didn’t let up on the defensive intensity at any point in the game, causing 27 turnovers to score 36 points. MTSU totaled 17 turnovers in the first half, while only scoring 16 points.
“We just had some turnovers that we shouldn’t have had,” guard Savannah Davis said. “We were just giving it to them, and it’s irritating.”
Offensively for the Lady Vols, there wasn’t just one player who topped the charts. After one half, UT didn’t have a single player in double digits but still scored 48 points. In the end, UT had four players in double digits.
MTSU’s second half went better than the first but still had its problems. The Lady Raiders found more offensive rhythm scoring 14 points in the third quarter and 11 points in the fourth.
Freshman guard Kirston Verhulst provided the brightest glimmer of hope for the future as she was tasked with running the offense for the majority of the second half.
“The coaches definitely respectfully kind of led to us at halftime about controlling our turnovers,” Verhulst said. “I think that was enough motivation to kind of get myself under control and again take leadership.”
Foul trouble continued to plague the Lady Raiders as Blair Baugus and Davis fouled out within the first two minutes of the fourth quarter.
“Our coaches say every day, we don’t have time to be freshman right now,” Verhulst said. “Obviously with our schedule and front of the season, we’re playing a lot of hard teams.”
Middle Tennessee will travel to Destin, Florida for the Emerald Coast Classic where the Lady Raiders will take on Providence University and then Mississippi State or Alcorn State.
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