The Lady Vols got back in the win column at Missouri and while it wasn’t the prettiest of games, Tennessee needed to halt its skid.
The Tigers built a 12-point first half lead, and the Lady Vols roared back to tie the game at halftime. Tennessee led by 10 points in the fourth quarter and then held on for the 76-71 win Sunday at Mizzou Arena.
“I don’t think we got off to a start that we needed to,” coach Kim Caldwell said. “We had talked at length about how hard this team plays, how physical they are, how disciplined they are, and I think we got punched in the mouth early. I do think we had a response, which was good.”
Tennessee is ranked No. 19 in the country after Monday’s AP poll was released and No. 14 in the all-important NET ranking, which is used by the NCAA to help determine postseason seeding. The Lady Vols also are still in the hunt to host the early rounds of the NCAA tourney, but the team needs a strong finish in the SEC and upset or two of a highly-ranked team.

Jillian Hollingshead gets to the rim against Missouri. (Tennessee Athletics)
The opportunities start this week with a Thursday, Feb. 6, game against No. 5 UConn, 21-2, in Knoxville at 6:30 p.m. at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center with a national broadcast on ESPN. That is followed by a trip to Baton Rouge for a rematch with No. 6 LSU, 23-1, on Sunday, Feb. 9, at 4 p.m. with another national broadcast on ESPN.
That brings us to the timing of the UConn game, which is not at all ideal for Tennessee in the middle of a rugged SEC season.
Through no fault of its own, conference realignment, which centers on football, left UConn without a high-profile league. A founding member of the Big East Conference in 1979, UConn ended up in the American Athletic Conference in 2013 when the Big East reorganized. Formerly a basketball powerhouse, the conference was gutted, and UConn played a slew of mid-major teams.
The Big East since has reformed as the BIG EAST, but all caps notwithstanding, it is a shell of what it was in terms of basketball strength. The old Big East had Muffet McGraw at Notre Dame and C. Vivian Stringer at Rutgers. Notre Dame is now in the ACC with Rutgers in the Big Ten.
That left UConn needing strong non-conference games in the winter months – UConn is coming off a 101-59 win over Butler – and Tennessee and South Carolina have filled slots.

Jewel Spear swishes a three against Missouri. (Tennessee Athletics)
It would make sense going forward if the Tennessee-UConn series moved into November or December because the SEC is strong enough without the need to step out of conference in February. Also, if the women decide to expand to 18 SEC games instead of the current 16 matchups, a spot won’t be open for a non-conference game in January or February.
The Tennessee-UConn series started in 1995 because the late Pat Summitt did what other coaches declined to do. She agreed to a home-and-home with UConn and Geno Auriemma to help grow the game.
It became must-see television as Summitt and Auriemma led their teams and then Summitt, with a three-game winning streak over UConn, ended it after the 2007 game – Candace Parker dunked at UConn in that one – because she had had enough of the recruiting shenanigans.
Summitt knew it wouldn’t be a popular decision, and ESPN begged her to bring it back, but Summitt, who died in 2016 from Alzheimer’s disease, didn’t budge.

Pat Summitt and Mickie DeMoss. (UT Athletics)
The series did return in 2020, an arrangement driven quite a bit by the athletics administration at both schools, and has been played four times, all won by UConn with Holly Warlick and Kellie Harper at the helm for Tennessee. Schedule conflicts prevented a game in 2024, but it’s back in 2025, and now Caldwell will be at the helm.
Lady Vols fans are excited it returned, lukewarm about it or adamant that it shouldn’t have been restarted. The latter group tends to be older and believes if Summitt ended it, she had very good reasons to do so.
SEC Network’s Ryan McGee narrated an excellent piece about the significance of the series that can be watched HERE.
It’s filled with clips of legendary players and, of course, Summitt and Auriemma. Is it still a big game? Yes. Is it a big win for either team? Yes. But the biggest figure in the story is gone, and that can never be undone.
For Caldwell, everything this season has been a first – from first practice to first game to first SEC matchup to her first child being born two weeks ago. The baggage of the series isn’t hers to unpack. It’s the next game on the schedule. A win would definitely count as a signature one in her career, especially given the weight of its history.
On the radio after the Missouri win, she was in basketball mode.
“I think we’ve got to finish better at the rim,” Caldwell said when asked about the matchup. “We have to get back to playing fast in transition again. We get back in the game, and we kind of revert to what they’ve done their whole lives. Be us.”
Caldwell was referring to what has occurred all season – slippage in games. As her team learns a new system on both ends of the court that is not familiar to how they played for years, the players can fall back on old habits.
Keep an eye on Coop 👀
27 PTS / 7 REB / 4 AST / 3 BLK / 6 STL pic.twitter.com/IkUI2WSCJp
— Lady Vols Basketball (@LadyVol_Hoops) February 3, 2025
Talaysia Cooper led (16-5, 3-4) with 27 points, seven rebounds six steals and three blocks against Missouri. The Lady Vols will need plenty of that – especially Cooper’s ability to disrupt the opponent with pressure – against UConn and LSU this week.
Cooper also stayed in basketball mode.
“Just staying physical, staying grounded, staying in the gym, lifting my teammates up, getting on each other in practice, getting better every day,” Cooper said. “And just knowing that it’s going be a tough one.”
Maria M. Cornelius, a senior writer/editor at MoxCar Marketing + Communications since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press.