Tennessee vs. Connecticut isn’t only a basic rivalry in girls’s faculty basketball. For years, it was the rivalry, two titans clashing a minimum of as soon as a season regardless of not sharing a convention, the predominant powers of the sport going at it yearly outdoors of March Madness, and, if we had been fortunate, inside it as nicely.
In 27 all-time conferences, UConn leads the sequence, 17-10. The two groups face off simply as soon as per yr in the common season, first from 1995 via 2007 after which once more since 2020. The Huskies and Volunteers have additionally clashed in the NCAA girls’s event many times, together with in 4 nationwide championship video games — this is not only a main rivalry between outdated foes, however one that girls’s faculty basketball itself has at occasions discovered itself in orbit round.
Now, the two meet up with No. 15 Tennessee — upset by Mississippi State on Thursday — heading to Connecticut to face an undefeated No. 1 UConn workforce coming off a 97-39 win over Xavier.
The two will face off once more for the twenty eighth time on Sunday, Feb. 1 at 12 p.m. ET, stay on FOX.
Brief History of the UConn-Tennessee Basketball Rivalry
The storied rivalry started greater than three a long time in the past, and virtually by accident. Back in 1995, the Lady Volunteers had been, as they’re now, an SEC energy, a three-time NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament champion earlier than they ever confronted the Huskies. Tennessee’s success in girls’s basketball predated its relationship with the NCAA, even: the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women ran a spring event from 1972 via 1982, ceding the territory to the NCAA — which already organized males’s sports activities — after that last tourney quite than having two separate champions for Division I girls’s basketball.
Tennessee, coached by Hall of Famer Pat Summitt beginning in 1974, would lose two AIAW championship video games, attain the Final Four on 4 events in 5 years, and make it to the event itself each season from 1977 via 1981, then swap to the NCAA for the ‘82 tourney, where the Vols would reach the Final Four once more. Tennessee would then win three NCAA women’s championships — in ‘87, ‘89 and ‘91 — to establish itself as the women’s basketball program.
Pat Summitt and the Lady Vols received their first nationwide championship all the means again in 1987. (Photo by Focus on Sport by way of Getty Images)
UConn didn’t have the identical pedigree at this level. Geno Auriemma, beforehand an assistant coach at Virginia and a highschool coach at Bishop McDevitt in Pennsylvania, took over as Connecticut’s coach in 1985. The Huskies had a single profitable season of their historical past at this level, however Auriemma rapidly molded them into one thing new: a 12-15 document in that inaugural marketing campaign stays the solely dropping season on his document.
The first-ever convention championship and March Madness look got here for UConn in Auriemma’s second season, and earlier than the 1994-1995 season the Huskies would win three Big East championships complete, make it to six-straight NCAA girls’s tournaments and attain the Elite Eight and Final Four, as nicely. There was a consistency constructing right here, even when it had not resulted in a nationwide championship but.
Tennessee vs. UConn: A New Tradition
As Auriemma detailed in his 2006 memoir, “Geno: In Pursuit of Perfection,” the rise of UConn meant moments in the nationwide highlight for a sport that didn’t have as many alternatives for that because it does in the current.
And on Martin Luther King Day in 1995, broadcast companion ESPN owed the Big East one such recreation. Given Connecticut’s standing, the Huskies had been a given for the Big East workforce to showcase, however “for whatever reason” agreements couldn’t be reached with groups like defending champion North Carolina, Auriemma’s outdated hang-out Virginia and others. Auriemma then instructed calling Summitt, and a brand new custom was born.
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Geno Auriemma’s Huskies and Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols confronted off in 4 nationwide championship video games throughout the life of the rivalry. (Photo by Damian Strohmeyer/Sports Illustrated by way of Getty Images)
The Huskies featured a loaded roster together with 4 future WNBA gamers in Nykesha Sales, Women’s Basketball Hall of Famers Kara Wolters and Jennifer Rizzotti, and Naismith Hall of Famer Rebecca Lobo. Tennessee, in the meantime, had its personal 4 future WNBA gamers in Tiffany Woosley, Michelle Marciniak, beginning middle for the 2000 WNBA champion Houston Comets Tiffani Johnson and Women’s Basketball Hall of Famer Nikki McCray.
UConn would win this primary assembly at house, 77-66, and take over the No. 1 spot from Tennessee in the course of, totally asserting its arrival as a reputable contender. The two would play a rematch in the tourney, which the Huskies would additionally win to earn their first-ever nationwide championship. Tennessee received its revenge in March ‘96, defeating the Huskies in the Final Four and eventually winning the national championship against Georgia — its first of three-straight titles to give the Lady Volts and Summitt six total.
Connecticut and Tennessee remained the major powers in women’s faculty basketball from that first assembly and for years into the future, and performed one another a minimum of in the common season yearly till 2007-2008. The pendulum would swing again in the Huskies’ course starting in 2000, as they received the nationwide event that yr, after which in 2002, 2003 and 2004 as nicely — UConn really defeated the Lady Vols for the nationwide championship in 2000, 2003 and 2004.
Basketball legends like UConn’s Diana Taurasi had been at the coronary heart of the rivalry with Tennessee at its top. (Photo by Manny Millan/Sports Illustrated by way of Getty Images)
Tennessee would then win once more in 2007 — the last yr the two matched up in the common season — and simply missed taking over UConn as half of March Madness in 2008, due to the Huskies dropping to Stanford in the Final Four. The Lady Vols would defeat Stanford, nonetheless, to earn their eighth nationwide championship. The two would go 13 years with out taking part in one another after over a decade of fixed matchups in the common season and March Madness.
Geno Auriemma and Pat Summitt’s Feud, Explained
As for why UConn and Tennessee stopped taking part in one another regardless of being at the middle of the girls’s basketball universe, you wouldn’t have to look any additional than disagreements between Auriemma and Summitt.
While the barbs slung by each over the years solely threatened the on-court relationship as soon as — which Auriemma apologized for, as famous in the memoirs of each coaches — it was Summitt’s accusation of recruiting violations that triggered her to cease renewing the sequence. The two famously each chased after now-Naismith Hall of Famer Maya Moore, with the Huskies profitable out regardless of committing a secondary guidelines violation in that course of, per ESPN’s report at the time. While UConn was not penalized for the violation by the NCAA, Summit refusing to face UConn whereas Auriemma remained its coach was a punishment, and one she introduced up in future years, as nicely, akin to in 2010 at SEC media day when she explicitly stated that was the cause the sequence had been discontinued regardless of what it had executed for girls’s faculty basketball.
Auriemma and Summitt inevitably repaired their relationship, which the Vols’ coach detailed in her memoir, “Sum It Up: 1,098 Victories, A Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective”. The legendary coach was recognized with early onset dementia in 2011. But earlier than she had even introduced her analysis, she obtained a letter from Auriemma displaying assist. Auriemma additionally turned the first contributor to the Pat Summitt Foundation — which she based to battle Alzheimer’s illness — with a $10,000 donation.
UConn-Tennessee Rivalry Renewed
UConn may need the sequence lead, however Tennessee is the final workforce to defeat them due to a Feb. 6, 2025 victory. (Photo by Bryan Lynn/Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Images)
While the two didn’t renew the sequence earlier than Summitt died in 2016, in 2018, a home-and-home sequence between the two faculties was introduced to begin it once more in 2020, and Tennessee and UConn have performed one another in each season since. The Huskies lead the all-time sequence, 17-10, and pulled forward in nationwide championships in 2014, in the midst of four-consecutive titles. However, the then-No. 19 Lady Vols upset the then-No. 5 Huskies in the earlier matchup between the two in 2025, 80-76. And that was the final loss the Huskies have suffered heading into Sunday’s showdown in Connecticut whereas using a 38-game profitable streak.
No. 1 UConn internet hosting No. 15 Tennessee is about extra than simply the 2025-26 season, nonetheless. Even with its temporary pause, it stays a showdown between powerhouses, between the most profitable packages in girls’s faculty basketball historical past. And, as is becoming for this rivalry, Tennessee is now ready to spoil what has been an ideal season so far for UConn.
