The Tennessee Volunteers have backed out of their scheduled trip to face the Colorado women’s basketball team in Boulder during the 2024-25 season, according to BuffZone’s Brian Howell.
Under an agreement made by recently fired Lady Vols head coach Kellie Harper, Colorado visited Knoxville in 2022 and was set to host Tennessee this upcoming season. However, new Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell has opted to pay CU $50,000 instead of completing the home-and-home series.
Fresh off leading the Buffs to their third straight NCAA Tournament appearance, head coach JR Payne told Howell that Colorado is having trouble putting together a nonconference slate.
“I think because we’ve had a lot of success, and we signed a really, really good class out of the portal,” Payne told Howell. “Maybe people are … unsure about (the altitude) if they’re not used to it. I don’t know.”
Colorado returns only four players from last season — Frida Formann, Sara-Rose Smith, Kindyll Wetta and Kennedy Sanders — but has found some success in the portal. Transfers coming to Boulder include Ayianna Johnson (Minnesota), JoJo Nworie (Texas Tech), Nyamer Diew (Iowa State), Lior Garzon (Oklahoma State), Jade Masogayo (Missouri State) and Johanna Teder (Washington State).
Colorado WBB coach JR Payne told me the #cubuffs are having a "very hard time" getting non-conference games for next season. CU was supposed to host Tennessee to complete a home-and-home (CU went there in 2022), but the Vols chose to pay $50K to CU to avoid the trip to Boulder.
— Brian Howell (@BrianHowell33) June 20, 2024
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