A Note From Andrew: Hello, fellow Ball-Knowers! Ahead of another massive matchup between Tennessee vs. UConn, we decided to bring back last year’s Hater’s History of the rivalry (with some additions after last year’s game) to lay out the implications for this Sunday’s marquee matchup between the two biggest brands in the sport…

This isn’t a hater guide but instead a chance to take a stroll down memory lane. To look at what makes a hater. How they’re formed, where it all begins. UConn vs. Tennessee is one of, if not the greatest rivalries in NCAA women’s basketball. Hell, women’s basketball in general. So let’s take you back to the start to explain how we got here and why the emergence of first year head coach Kim Caldwell might rekindle the rivalry and bring it back into prominence.

As we’ve outlined in prior Legendarium installments, many of the greatest coaches in women’s basketball history got their starts at relatively young ages as Title IX’s implementation opened the door for recent college graduates to take over programs in their infancy.

Pat Summitt, born Pat Head, was already well known in southern basketball circles. She had competed in the 1976 Olympics as a player alongside Nancy Lieberman and Lucy Harris. At 22 years old, she became a graduate assistant at the University of Tennessee and became a head coach that same year after a sudden departure of Margaret Hutson. From 1974-1985 Pat became a legend, growing the Lady Vols into a national powerhouse. They were regularly in the AIAW or NCAA Final Four and were runners up in 1980, 1981 and 1984.

In 1985, Geno was just getting his start. He had been an assistant in the Philadelphia basketball scene for most of the late 70’s before taking a job at Virginia under the legendary Debbie Ryan. To say that he had a mountain to climb to catch up to established programs like Summitt’s Lady Vols would be an understatement. Unlike other programs that had found their footing post Title IX, Auriemma was effectively building from scratch in Storrs.

Within five years, the Huskies had made their first Final Four and were a regular competitor alongside Tennessee in late March every year. Around the mid 1990’s, the hate begins in earnest.

To be someone’s hater is to never let them know peace. If they accomplish something, you find negativity. If people laugh at their joke, you find a way for it to not be funny. If you’re Pat Summitt, you write in your memoir that you presented as ‘decorous in public’ while Geno Auriemma is ‘a smart ass who preferred negative attention over no attention at all’. Conversely, if you’re Geno, you write in your book that ‘Pat gets preferential treatment from everybody, that she’s untouchable, because she’s Pat.’

But as much as their personas differed, they understood the greater assignment in the world of women’s basketball. The sport needed its best teams and brands to welcome competition for the sake of bringing eyeballs to the greater product. In that respect, the two were the same in their goals. So they agreed to a non-conference matchup in the 1990’s.

From ‘95 on, the teams would meet every year in late January. And would typically trade blows in NCAA Tournaments or in marquee matchups carried by ESPN. Initially, the competition was simply on the floor. Privately, they carried a mutual respect and were willing to help each other out or extend kind gestures to one another. But soon that changed and that good ole’ fashioned hate began in earnest.

For the most part, the hate began as playful ribbing on Geno’s part, comparing the programs to the Philly cheesesteak giants ‘Pat’s’ and ‘Geno’s, hating on Rocky Top and generally talking shit for no reason especially in the early 2000’s. But it reached a head in 2002, when Auriemma opined about whether or not the NCAA was grouping a plurality of men’s coaches in the same tournament brackets to minimize the amount of them in the Final Four.

A notion Summitt said was ‘the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard’.

Eventually, it reached a head in 2003 when Geno cracked what he thought was a joke about Villanova coach Harry Perretta. Peretta and Auriemma were friends who were Philadelphia buddies. But it was during this period that Summitt and Peretta became friends and Geno…let’s just say he couldn’t help himself.

Auriemma seemed to feel that Peretta was trying to help Pat get an edge on his Huskies. During the NCAA Tournament that year, Summitt hosted the Villanova women’s basketball team and treated them to a cookout before beating the Wildcats in an opening round matchup. Which led to the infamous quote from Geno.

“Harry and I used to be in the hot tub together. He dumped me for the Evil Empire,” he said.

Pat called Geno jealous and said he was paranoid. Naturally, the media loved this kind of beef. So the questions to them continued.

After a point, it got so nasty that Summitt had accused Geno of violating NCAA rules. They stopped talking outside of the sport and there is a lot of he said-she said in terms of who actually wanted to discontinue the UConn - Tennessee series. By and large, they would trade periods of dominance. The Huskies won every matchup between 2002 and 2004, then the Lady Vols took over from 2005 to 2007 until the matchups took a hiatus until 2020.

In spite of all the beef and haterdom that had evolved over the years, Summitt wrote in her memoir that shortly before she announced her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, she received a note from Geno offering well wishes. He would later be the first contributor — a check for $10,000 — to the Pat Summitt Foundation to fight Alzheimer’s.

When the rivalry returned in 2020, the games weren’t particularly competitive. The Lady Vols got within six points in the 2021 matchup but outside of that game it’s been mostly double digit Husky wins.

But there were still ways in which the hate and enmity between the two programs persisted. Candace Parker, in many ways a living avatar of Summitt in today’s world, inferred that Auriemma had a say in her being left off the 2016 Olympic roster. He deflected the accusation over to the USA Basketball selection committee but Parker continued in 2018 saying flatly, ‘He doesn’t like me, I don’t like him. We don’t like each other.’

Absent Summitt or Parker’s presence in the college ranks, the rivalry between the two teams was largely dormant and didn’t give Lady Vols fans much of a reason to get up for the big games when they returned.

The hope, this year, is that a newly rejuvenated Tennessee group under first year head coach Kim Caldwell brings the competitiveness back. In their five losses, the Lady Vols have lost by the following margins: 1, 2, 1, 4, 7. Two of those losses were buzzer beaters to Vanderbilt and LSU. On the other side, UConn looks like the UConn of old behind Paige Bueckers, fabulous freshman Sarah Strong and the healthiest rotation they’ve had since before the Pandemic.

In terms of the animosity, Geno in particular doesn’t want to see a return to the old ways. But there’s no reason why it can’t still be every bit the competitive rivalry it was before unethical hating took over the dialogue of some of the best basketball we’ve ever seen in the sport.

Tonight, there’s a new opportunity to write a new chapter. There doesn’t need to be the sniping or a narrative of good vs. evil. Instead, let the players be the ones to decide the beef (the way Marina Mabrey and Napheesa Collier once did in the Notre Dame - UConn rivalry). Or, let the product on the floor just speak for itself. The last two years in women’s college basketball, we’ve seen a resurgence of some of the most historically relevant programs in the game. Iowa, USC, UCLA and LSU, for instance. Now, the Lady Vols appear to be the next giant to wake back up. When everyone is awake and joins the new dominant power in South Carolina, the sport advances in the best of ways.

Here I am, on January 28th, 2026, adding to an already storied history with another layer. Last season, we all saw what happened. Kim Caldwell’s apparently overmatched Tennessee Lady Vols knocked off a Paige Bueckers led-Husky team in Thompson-Boling Arena. It was a masterful win for the newly minted head coach over the long-time primary antagonist of UT women’s basketball.

Geno Auriemma’s team promptly turned around and rolled the field en route to a national championship and have been on something of a “Did you forget about us?” tour this season. This legitimately may be the last test the Huskies have — let’s face it, the Big East just once again doesn’t have the juice — until the NCAA Tournament begins. The Lady Vols are looking better and have the shooters and scheme to match UConn’s depth and death by 1000 cuts style. But is there anyone that can defend Sarah Strong? Probably not.

Now that the sophomore forward is fully confident in herself and her status as one of the next great players in this game, best of luck to the program that tries to stop her. Could it be Tennessee? Back in Hartford for the first time in a long time? There’s an agenda for us to push one way or another, so let’s throw the ball up and see what happens.