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Knoxville's favorite hometown star, Kelsea Ballerini, shut down some Twitter tea in the best way possible after some observers highlighted her "bummed" face at the Grammys Sunday after she lost the Best Country Album award to fellow artist Lainey Wilson.

"Kelsea Ballerini didn’t appear impressed as she was was caught on camera looking upset" was the common theme on more than a few tweets.

Ballerini was quick to fire back in an heartwarming Instagram story:

"Ohhhh y'all. You can be bummed for your loss and happy for somebody else's win at the same time. Two things can be true and both hold valid and valuable space. The face reading and reaction analysis is unnecessary and hurtful to everyone."

She then added, "A woman's win is a team win. Write about that instead?"

Ballerini, who also went viral for a video showing her dancing and singing along to Miley Cyrus' "Flowers" with Taylor Swift, made a good point about female representation at this year's Grammys.

Women dominated across the board, winning the night's top prizes.

Besides Wilson's win, Miley Cyrus won her first Grammy for Record of the Year, Billie Eilish won Song of The Year, Victoria Monét was crowned as Best New Artist and Taylor Swift won Album of the Year for the fourth time — becoming the first artist to do so.

Alternative/indie group boygenius, comprised of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Memphis-native Julien Baker, took home three awards including Best Alternative Music Album, while Colombian pop star Karol G was the first woman to win in the Best Música Urbana Album category and Paramore became the first band fronted by a woman to win Best Rock Album.

Liz Kellar is a Tennessee Connect reporter. Email liz.kellar@knoxnews.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.

A new airline and a new destination are coming to McGhee Tyson at a time of incredible growth and change for the airport.

The announcement coming Feb. 6 coincides with the Knoxville airport's fast-growing passenger traffic. With 2.81 million passengers, 2023 was the airport's busiest year on record.

It's expanding offerings, too. A new $180 million, six-story parking garage will add 3,500 more spaces in 2026, and the airport will add six additional gates in a terminal expansion expected to be completed by 2029.

The airline news will be announced Feb. 6 at a 10:30 a.m. event in the terminal.

A media advisory teasing the announcement said the new airline would add a new destination to the airport's lineup.

Attracting a new airline means the airport can convince more passengers to fly out of Knoxville instead of going to Nashville or Atlanta.

The airport is waiting for Feb. 6 to say which airline is coming.

Will McGhee Tyson get Southwest Airlines?

Knoxville's airport offers nonstop flights to 27 destinations on five airlines: Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier and United. Most of its flights are through Allegiant, which made Knoxville a hub in 2018, and nine of its destinations are offered only seasonally.

Southwest Airlines tops the wish list, though the airline has experienced delays in delivery of new planes, which could also delay a possible introduction to Knoxville. Airport leaders have courted Southwest for years, making the case that Knoxville would be a great new market for the beloved budget carrier.

Representatives of the airline have even visited the airport to check it out.

"We know that they’re interested; we just don’t know when that’s going to be,” Patrick Wilson, president of the Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority, told Knox News in 2023. “We are in continuous contact in promoting and reminding Southwest about the potential of this market, and they’re very good to have time for us and to listen to us on a regular basis.”

Southwest placed a new crew base at Nashville International Airport last August, investing in Knoxville's much larger neighbor. McGhee Tyson outpaced Nashville and all other Tennessee markets in passenger growth rate last year.

Southwest's fleet is made up exclusively of Boeing 737s, a model that has faced manufacturing delays that could last years.

In 2019, Southwest grounded its Boeing 737 Max jets after two deadly crashes on other airlines led to a nationwide grounding and investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration. The planes returned to service in 2021.

Southwest does not fly Boeing 737 Max 9 jets, which are now under FAA investigation after a door blew out in midair on an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5.

No flights from Knoxville are on Max 9 jets, an airport spokesperson said in January.

Could Knoxville be getting another budget airline?

The key to McGhee Tyson's recovery from the pandemic has been low-cost airlines like Allegiant and Frontier, which have grown faster than the so-called "Big Three": American, Delta and United. As more passengers seek cheap domestic vacations, they have turned to budget airlines.

It would make sense for McGhee Tyson to secure another budget airline, perhaps Spirit or JetBlue. If that were the case, the airport could see more destinations added from the new airline as time goes on.

When a current airline adds a new destination, like Allegiant expanding its service to Orlando last November, the airport does not host an announcement event.

Spirit and JetBlue are feuding with the federal government, after the U.S. Justice Department prevented JetBlue from buying its smaller competitor for $3.8 billion. A federal court will hear the airlines' appeal in June after a federal district judge sided with the government and blocked the merger, saying it broke antitrust law.

In the aviation world, JetBlue is considered a "hybrid" airline, along with Alaskan Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines. The three are not as cheap as Frontier or Spirit and not as big as the dominant U.S. carriers.

Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Email daniel.dassow@knoxnews.com.

Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.

The biggest game to this point on the SEC men’s basketball calendar came with a decisive victor.

No. 5 Tennessee (16-5, 6-2 SEC) went on the road Saturday night to face No. 8 Kentucky (15-6, 5-4) at Rupp Arena and used an offensive explosion — shooting 48.6% overall and 40% from 3-point range — to knock off the Wildcats 103-92 and pick up its most impressive victory of the 2023-24 season. All five starters scored in double figures for the Vols, who were led by 26 points apiece from Zakai Zeigler and Josiah-Jordan James.

The win served as a rebound of sorts for coach Rick Barnes’ team, which had been beaten earlier in the week at home by a surging South Carolina squad. For Kentucky, it was its second loss of the week, as it fell in overtime at home three nights earlier against Florida. Coach John Calipari’s squad has now lost four of its past seven games after starting the season 12-2.

REQUIRED READING:Rick Barnes has half of Tennessee basketball's all-time wins at Kentucky's Rupp Arena

Elsewhere, No. 16 Auburn (18-4, 7-2) won both of its games last week after a two-game losing streak the prior week dropped it 10 spots in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. The Tigers’ heated in-state rival, No. 22 Alabama (16-6, 8-1), went 2-0 last week, capped off by a 32-point thumping of Mississippi State on Saturday.

Auburn’s win Saturday against Ole Miss means it’s unlikely the Rebels (18-4, 5-4), who were the second team left out of last week’s top 25, sneak into the poll. But South Carolina’s triumphant week, with road wins against Tennessee and Georgia, make it likely the Gamecocks (19-3, 7-2) will appear in the top 25 for the first time since February 2017, about a month before they made a run to the Final Four.

How will those games reflect in the SEC's rankings among the latest top Coaches and AP Top 25 polls?

REQUIRED READING:Why Jerry Stackhouse believes win vs Missouri could be catalyst for Vanderbilt basketball

College basketball rankings for Feb. 5

USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll

This section will be updated when the poll is released Monday afternoon.

AP Top 25

This section will be updated when the poll is released Monday afternoon.

After more than 12 years of serving up what many call the best grilled cheese sandwich in town, the popular It's All So Yummy Café in West Knoxville is calling it quits.

Owner Kim Wilcox posted a farewell in an emotional Facebook post on Feb. 3, telling her customers she plans to close down by the end of the month.

"I feel like I’m running on fumes, digging deep, and trudging through, but I’ve maxed out," she wrote. "It’s important for me to know when to call it quits, but it’s also so hard when something has been the center of your world for so long."

Wilcox said she was fortunate to have been able to pursue her dream, saying that running the restaurant consumed her life and felt like a legacy she would be able to pass on. Now, however, she is "tapped out."

"I don't know that I ever thought I would get to this point," Wilcox said in a phone conversation the Monday after she broke the news. "I'm just tired. ... I need a little down time to rejuvenate."

Wilcox said she needs to regroup and refresh, but did not provide details on what her future plans are, saying simply on Facebook, "It’s not goodbye, it’s what’s next?!"

Last year, she published a cookbook of grilled cheese and sides recipes and told Knox News at the time she was working on a second cookbook featuring comfort foods; that book is already out and she is considering a third.

"I will do something else that has to do with food," Wilcox said, but added she needs time to decide what the "next thing" is going to be.

Closing the café is more than bittersweet, she said, adding, "I knew today was going to be tough. Probably the next couple of weeks are going to be tough. ... Part of me feels like I'm letting people down and that's hard for me."

Wilcox said she had been tossing around the decision to close It's All So Yummy for a while and put the café up for sale a year ago. Now that the closing is official, several potential buyers have come forward.

"We couldn't have made it 12 and a half years without the wonderful people I have had here backing me up," Wilcox said. "A lot of people behind the scenes had my back and helped me − and all the people who loyally came in and visited us once a week or twice a week ... I am so thankful for that."

Liz Kellar is a Tennessee Connect reporter. Email liz.kellar@knoxnews.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.

Tennessee started hot on Saturday night at Rupp Arena and never really looked back. The Volunteers jumped out to a quick ten point lead in the opening minutes, and that hot shooting never cooled off. Kentucky’s swiss-cheese defense helped throughout the night, as Rick Barnes was able to scheme up several sets to generate some easy buckets.

It was nice to see coming off of a dreadful performance at home against South Carolina, where Tennessee was only able to score 59 points. It was the Dalton Knecht show again against the Gamecocks, but that changed in a big way against Kentucky.

Finally, we saw Josiah-Jordan James come to life once again. James had a hot start to the year, but tailed off hard shortly after. We hadn’t seen James assert himself on the offensive end in several weeks, seemingly taking a backseat to the Dalton Knecht show.

On Saturday, James put up 18 shots and hit half of them on his way to 26 points.

“We told the guys is that we’re not going to sit around and watch Dalton do it,” Rick Barnes said after the Kentucky win. “We’ve got too many good players. And I said we’re not going to do that. And I told those guys, simple, we want you to do what we do.”

On James specifically, Barnes noticed an uptick in his practice performance.

“He’s been a huge part of this program from the time he walked on campus,” Barnes said of James. “And what I love about him, and I’ve said it before, when Jordan (Gainey) was going through a little bit of a slump, he struggled in practice. But the last two days, we’ve had some really good work in practice.”

Santiago Vescovi and Jonas Aido added 11 points each. Zakai Zeigler had a massive bounceback game, pouring in 26 points along with 13 assists. Knecht was limited to a measly 16 points.

We’ve been waiting to see Tennessee put all the pieces together and find that next level. This performance was as close to we’ve seen to that.

“Obviously (Knecht) can go do it,” Barnes said. “And there’s some games, and will be some other games this year, where he’ll do some of that. But again, I also think Kentucky did a nice job guarding. And as the season goes on, he’s going to have to deal with that.

“And all this is new to (Knecht). And as he continues to grow, like he already has, he’s got a chance to get so much better. But what I think he also more than anything is that his teammates, they believe in him. But they also want him to continue to get better like they get better. And he will because he’s a worker.”

Tennessee needed that one. JJJ needed to see the ball go through the rim a few times. Zeigler needed a bounceback night. Vescovi needed to continue to work forward like he’s been doing. Overall, this group just needed to flush a really bad night away against South Carolina. On the road, in perhaps the toughest environment in the SEC, they did that and then some.

The Volunteers left no doubt and reminded us all what a finished product could look like. Now if they could just find a little consistency...

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