Tennessee hires Marshall's Kim Caldwell as new coach - ESPN

Tennessee hired Marshall coach Kim Caldwell on Sunday, going outside the Lady Vols family for the first time since the late Pat Summitt stepped down.

Caldwell replaces Kellie Harper, who was fired last week after five seasons coaching at her alma mater. She will be introduced at a news conference Tuesday. The move might be considered outside the box to some. Both Harper and her predecessor, Holly Warlick, had deep ties to the program.

Not so with Caldwell, who spent this past season at Marshall, reinvigorating a program that had been down. In her lone season as head coach, Marshall won the Sun Belt championship, set a record for most wins in school history (26) and made the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1997.

Before going to Marshall, Caldwell spent seven seasons at her alma mater, Division II Glenville State, winning the 2022 Division II national championship. That same year, she won the Pat Summitt Trophy as the WBCA NCAA Division II National Coach of the Year.

«From the beginning, our goal has been to find a dynamic head coach who can restore our women's basketball program to national prominence. Kim Caldwell is the ideal person to lead us,» Tennessee athletics director Danny White said in a statement. «Kim has a winning formula that she has successfully implemented everywhere she has coached, with a fast-paced, high-octane offense and pressure defense that has led to remarkable results. In this new era of college sports, it was vital that we found an innovative head coach with a strong track record of winning titles. We are eager to return the Lady Vols to a championship level, and we're confident that Kim Caldwell is the coach who can lead us back to the top.»

Unlike Harper, who had a long track record as