Lady Vols seeking success against old school rival UConn

Thursday night, it’s a renewal of one of the iconic rivalries in women’s college basketball as Tennessee host UConn (6:30pm ET, Food City Center). In the 90’s it was annually the match up in the women’s game. 

“My biggest memory would be how it kind of took over your whole week of when that game was on the schedule, you would talk about it at school, you would talk about it at practice, and you would just be looking forward to it, and then you would watch it, and you would record it, and it was just such a big deal,” head coach Kim Caldwell said. “I think that is something that was great for women’s basketball, and it’s very humbling to now be a part of it.”

Caldwell admitted it kind of hit her Sunday afternoon as see and her team were headed home from a 76-71.

“I think when I got on the plane and started my Connecticut scout, it was like, ‘Oh, we’re doing this.’ And two years ago, you’re scouting against Division II opponents, and now you’re scouting against Connecticut,” Caldwell admitted. “But we’ve scouted against a lot, you’ve already done LSU, you’ve already done South Carolina, you’ve already done a lot of top 25 teams. So, just kind of where we’re at, and you have to treat basketball like it’s basketball. You can look at that for a second and then you’ve got to get back to doing what you do.”

UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said he wouldn’t spent time this week talking about match up history between the two programs that was the must see game of the year for women’s basketball. But acknowledges the series when it first got established was different.

“What I remember most about playing down there and playing Tennessee anywhere back in those days was more times than not, if you looked out on the floor, there’s like 7 or 8 Hall of Famers playing and you knew it then that they were and you know it was not going to be a normal game. It’s going to be wild,” Auriemma said.

“One game that particularly stands out is the opening tap, they scored, we scored, they scored, we scored and there’s no dead balls or fouls called.Four minutes went by and there were no stopping. If I named the 10 on the floor you would say there’s no way those 10 were on the floor at the same time. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. For me that’s the greatest sequence I’ve ever been a part of with them.” 

Tennessee fans are hoping Caldwell can get the Lady Vols program back to doing what they want it to do which is to be more successful in this series. 

The Lady Vols won three straight from 2005-2007 before the series was halted. Since it’s renewal, UConn has won 4 straight and leads the all-time series 17-9.  

“There’s a lot of history in the match up,” senior Jewell Spear said. “I was aware of the match up because of the iconic legendary players like Tamika Catchings, Maya Moore, Dianna Taurasi, and Chamique Holdsclaw, there a lot of history with it and there’s a lot of pride you take in knowing the historic match up that it is.” 

As for this year’s match up it’s certainly a challenging one as UConn comes in 21-2 and ranked 5th in the country and they are getting healthier. The Huskies have won 11 straight since losing to Southern Cal in December, the last ranked team UConn played. 

Caldwell knows her team much play their best to have a chance as the home upset and ending the program’s four game skid to the national power.

“We have to show up on the defensive end” Caldwell said. “We have to talk without giving away what we’re planning on doing. We have to be locked in and every single mistake we make, they’re going to capitalize.”

Coming off the road win at Missouri, Caldwell was happy to get the win but not thrilled with how her team performed. 

“I was glad we got out of there with a win. It was good to win a close game. We did not shoot well. We did not finish well. Our finishing was bad, and that’s what we’re going to start practice with today is working on finishing at the rim. Had some really bad IQ plays, and it was frustrating because I thought we had a great three or four days of practice going into that game and it did not translate.

“I think our shot selection is still poor. I think we need to work on sharing the ball better.”

Thursday’s game will be the 3rd game of a 5 game stretch featuring 4 top-10 match ups for the Lady Vols.