The Lady Vols took the first loss of the season – after nearly wiping out a 16-point deficit in the fourth quarter – and will have to regroup quickly as the next game on the schedule is another top 10 team.

Tennessee is now 13-1 after Sunday’s 87-86 loss to Oklahoma. On Monday, the Lady Vols fell just one spot in the AP poll to No. 16, while the Sooners also dropped a spot to No. 10. The voters seemed to recognize that it wasn’t a bad loss, but Oklahoma didn’t deserve to be dinged.

Regardless, voter polls don’t matter, thank goodness, to the NCAA Selection Committee come March. The NET rating, a factor for the committee in tournament seedings, didn’t budge at No. 17.

Coach Kim Caldwell was annoyed after the game because she realized if her team had played every quarter like it did the final four minutes of the fourth quarter, the Lady Vols have another win. SEC wins are hard to come by, and nothing vexes a coach more than losing one in the team’s grasp.

No. 6 LSU arrives with a clean 17-0 record on Thursday, Jan. 9, for a game at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center at 6:30 p.m. The game will be livestreamed on SECN+. Former Lady Vol Tamari Key will be on the concourse to sign autographs before the game behind Section 129 as part of an event with the Lady Vol Boost Her Club.

It should not get lost in the loss that the Lady Vols, to date, have exceeded reasonable expectations with a new coaching staff and seven newcomers on the roster. But it also showed how good Tennessee could be in Caldwell’s first year if everything comes together as the season progresses. In that regard, it’s not a bad loss if the team absorbs the lessons.

The Tigers, however, present a tough matchup for a bounce-back. Yet another Final Four contender in the SEC, the Tigers are led by Flau’Jae Johnson, who averages 19.7 points, and Aneesha Morrow, a double-double generator at 18.1 points and 14.0 rebounds per game. Tennessee will have to box out, or the Tigers will feast on the glass.

The Lady Vols will need an official day off Monday – though players often find the gym and training room on their own – and then will have two days to prepare for the Tigers. Once conference play starts, it’s a wash-rinse-repeat cycle, and players have to recover fast and regroup.

“We can’t play this game over again, so not dwelling on the loss, but taking the things that we didn’t do well and making sure that in the next game that we play we do those things well, so that there’s a better outcome,” said Samara Spencer, who had 16 points and five assists in the Oklahoma game.

Tennessee will get back in the film room and on the practice court. Jewel Spear did all she could to defeat Oklahoma with a career-high 28 points on 11-17 shooting at 64.7 percent, including 6-11 from the arc at 54.5 percent. The senior has a plan for the film session, too.

“Just before we go to film, making sure everybody’s taking notes and actually paying attention and taking accountability,” Spear said. “No pointing fingers. We’re all in this together. You see the mistake, just fix it. I think accountability is a big thing.”

Accountability was also Caldwell’s word as she has been preaching to her team that lapses in effort, turnovers and lack of boxouts will result in a loss at some point. The fact Tennessee nearly pulled it off anyway may have annoyed the coach even further because she saw how the team could play when inspired.

The film session won’t necessarily show anything the players haven’t seen already, but Caldwell hopes it will finally get their attention.

“You’ve got to fix it, and they’ve got to be open to fixing it,” Caldwell said. “We can’t continue to make the same mistakes, especially with our turnovers. A lot of our turnovers come from just not playing off two feet or trying to make the same move or trying to drive through traffic and take too many bounces – which we’ve said, showing them on film.

“In a one-point loss, if they’re not ready to sit there and watch the film and take accountability and say, ‘I need to fix this, because this just cost us a game,’ then there’s not a lot of hope for us. But I’m hoping that they’ll look at the film and they’ll take it seriously, and they’ll make a focused effort to change those things.”

Maria M. Cornelius, a senior writer/editor at MoxCar Marketing + Communications since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press.