Just 18 days after giving birth to her son Conor and in the first win for No. 19 Tennessee in this epic rivalry since 2007, first-year coach Kim Caldwell’s Lady Vols took down No. 5 UConn at home, 80-76.

“I thought we played really hard,” Caldwell said. “I was so proud of their effort. That’s a very good team — I just thought maybe we outworked them, and that’s what we needed.”

Tennessee, known for its high-volume 3-point shooting, didn’t connect as much from behind the arc as Caldwell thought her team might need to take down the Huskies (going 7-of-28), instead getting a lot of production in the paint. The Lady Vols took advantage of the fact that UConn doesn’t have a pure rim protector on its roster this season and scored 42 paint points and outrebounded the Huskies, 46-34.

What was typical of Tennessee was the chaos caused by the Lady Vols’ full-court pressure defense, specifically in a decisive third quarter in which Tennessee outscored UConn, 22-15 — the only quarter of the game the Lady Vols outscored the Huskies. In that quarter, the Huskies went scoreless from the floor for nearly 4 1/2 minutes, allowing Tennessee to put on a 13-2 run as UConn missed eight consecutive field goals.

Zee Spearman (16 points) and Samara Spencer (14 points) hit some huge shots for the Lady Vols and carried the team at different points through the game, a hallmark for this high-substitution offensive system. Spearman scored nine of Tennessee’s 21 fourth-quarter points, including the final four points for the Lady Vols, while Spencer was a big part of the Lady Vols’ productive third quarter, scoring six consecutive points in that 13-2 run.

The win is Caldwell’s first over a top-5 opponent and the Lady Vols’ first ranked win this season since an early December win over then-ranked Iowa. Since then, Tennessee has gone 0-4 against ranked opponents, losing those games by a total of just 14 points.

The Lady Vols needed a win like this to get over the hump against ranked foes, and the fact that it comes in this rivalry game — with alums like Izzy Harrison, Tamari Key, Jordan Horston and Cierra Burdick sitting courtside — made it that much more meaningful.

For Caldwell, the win was particularly special given how formative the Tennessee-UConn rivalry was to her when she was growing up. As a kid and teenager in the 2000s, Caldwell was enamored with how heated the Lady Vols-Huskies rivalry became, breaking into major sporting discourse and helping put women’s college basketball onto the main stage. Even in her hometown in West Virginia, she recalled how her AAU practices were always split into teams that were “UConn” and “Tennessee.”

“It made people talk about women’s sports. It made people talk about basketball,” Caldwell said of the rivalry. “It was just such an incredible time, because I don’t know that we’ve had anything since on the women’s side.”

The two programs ruled women’s college hoops, meeting annually during the regular season from 1995 until 2007 when the rivalry took a hiatus. In addition, they met six times in the postseason (including thrice in the national title game). Since the rivalry reignited in 2020, the Huskies have won four straight, but with Tennessee’s most recent win, the series now stands at 17-10 with UConn leading the way.

The marquee win pushes Tennessee closer into hosting territory for the NCAA Tournament (a benefit given to the top 16 teams) and comes at a particularly strong time for the Lady Vols as the first top-16 reveal is just 10 days away.

For UConn, the loss highlighted some vulnerabilities of this specific roster. The lack of an established inside presence has seemed surmountable for the Huskies given the talent of perimeter players like Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd, as well as freshman star Sarah Strong, who led UConn with 18 points and nine rebounds. But that lack of a dominant big only works when UConn can balance a paint attack from perimeter players or slashers with dominant 3-point shooting.

And while the Huskies have shot 38 percent as a team on the season from 3 (sixth-best percentage nationally), UConn struggled from range against Tennessee, shooting 5-of-20 from 3. Similarly, in the Huskies’ other two losses this season, UConn also struggled from range, going 3-of-16 in an 11-point loss to Notre Dame and 6-of-23 in a two-point loss to USC.

Tennessee now gets no rest, traveling to Baton Rouge this weekend to face No. 9 LSU on Sunday. UConn has a chance to get things back on track against two Big East opponents before going to Columbia to take on No. 2 South Carolina on Feb. 16.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Tennessee Lady Volunteers, Connecticut Huskies, Women's College Basketball

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