Goodness, check out what Kim Caldwell’s Tennessee Lady Vols just accomplished against UConn
Incredible, truly, what Kim Caldwell achieved 17 days after giving birth to a baby boy, partway through her first season coaching a job with uncompromising expectations.
She beat the legend. She humbled UConn. She planted her flag.
And when it was finished, this 80-76 Tennessee triumph over No. 5 UConn, the crowd cheered so vigorously and “Rocky Top” blared so loudly you could hardly hear a word Caldwell said during her postgame interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe.
“We maybe outworked them,” Caldwell said.
Outsmarted them and outplayed them, too.
The rest of what she said, I couldn’t decipher.
Her words hardly mattered. The look on her face and the elation in the stands told the story.
The Lady Vols are a player again. Finally.
Fitting, really, that Tennessee delivered that message by toppling Geno Auriemma’s proud program.
This rivalry once defined women’s sports. What better way for No. 17 Tennessee to prove it’s real, to prove its 36-year-old sideline general who coached at Marshall just 10 months ago and at Division II Glenville State just 23 months ago, is for real, than to beat the program that supplanted Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols as women’s basketball’s superpower?
Used to be, when these teams met with their unmatchable collection of All-America talent and incomparable blend of coaching legends, the result hinted at a national champion to come.
Let’s not confuse this matchup with that which came before. This felt more like a clash worthy of the Sweet 16, but don’t let that diminish this whirlwind revitalization Caldwell engineered for women’s basketball’s bluest of blue bloods, which spent too long punching below its weight and last reached an Elite Eight nine years ago.
Tennessee nearly broke through a month ago, when it missed a shot at the buzzer against LSU – a top-five opponent on the shortlist of national champion contenders – that would have sent the game to overtime.
Heartbreaking losses, though, happened often enough before Caldwell. The Lady Vols needed to finish. This time, they did.
