Tennessee has parted ways with head women’s basketball coach Kellie Harper after five seasons at the helm. The move comes just one week after the Lady Volunteers were bounced by NC State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
A Tennessee alum and former player under Pat Summit, Harper took over at her alma mater in 2019 to help restore the Lady Vols as a national power. Her overall results were mostly good as she posted a 108-52 record with four trips to the NCAA Tournament and two Sweet 16 appearances.
However, “good” isn’t good enough in Knoxville as the former superpower has clearly fallen into a tier below current superpowers South Carolina and LSU in the last decade. Harper never finished higher than third in the SEC standings and failed to deliver the program’s first SEC title since 2015. A second-round loss to eventual Final Four team NC State triggered the UT brass to re-evaluate things and they decided to go into a different direction.
Tennessee will now undergo a coaching search with the hopes of finding a candidate who can restore the program to national prominence and can make up some of the ground ceded to South Carolina in the last decade. Their previous two hires have been Summit disciples, so it’s probably time for the program look outside of the family for this next hire.