When it comes to Tennessee women's basketball, there are a few names that are seared into the hearts and minds of generations of fans and athletes, and the name of 2-time WNBA champion and 2-time NCAA champion Alexis Hornbuckle is one of them.
Hornbuckle, who played for the Lady Vols for all four years of her collegiate career and is a proud product of the Pat Summitt system, has been paying close attention to Coach Kim Caldwell and her team this season. The 2025 Lady Vols are clearly cooking up something special she's "excited" to witness it firsthand, Hornbuckle told High Post Hoops.
"We obviously didn't have a strong run in the SEC tournament," Hornbuckle said, "and then to turn around and to be placed in a bracket where you're playing Ohio State at Ohio State — which is a very solid team — and to be able to pull out the win! I mean, we looked good."
"We were competitive. We were energetic. We competed hard. We finished plays. We answered their runs. We went on our own runs," she added. "It just looked like Lady Vols basketball."
Alexis Hornbuckle says Kim Caldwell's rotation style is "exciting basketball"
A lot of attention has been paid to Caldwell's rotation style, which sees five players going in and five players going out in rapid success throughout the entire 40 m40-minuteinute game. Hornbuckle enjoys watching it in person, and has contemplated whether or not she would enjoy it as an athlete under Caldwell.
"Knowing myself and my talents and my mindset, the answer would be yes," she explained. Key to making the style work is a player's willingness to check their ego at the door, Hornbuckle added. "As a basketball player, you're typically used to being left in in order to, you know, find your rhythm, create a flow, take over things like that. But with this, you have to be ready and you have to be able to produce in a short amount of time in and out."
That kind of rotation requires a player to be "mentally tough" she added, and Caldwell has done an excellent job of getting the team to where they need to be to pull it off.
"You definitely have to check your ego at the door," Hornbuckle continued. "And in order to win big at the highest level, you have to have a team-oriented mindset, not a selfish one," she said, an echo of the lessons of Summitt through and through.
This kind of mindset will make "you do it a lot quicker, right?" she explained. "Because you can't come in just jacking all the shots. You can't come in and not play any defense [and you can't] be a liability on defense or offense, because you won't see the court. And if you don't produce, you're not going to see the court."
"So it's just a matter of, 'I'm not bigger than this team,'" Hornbuckle added. "I love that."
Alexis Hornbuckle continues to make an impact in basketball
Though she's since left the professional side of the game, Hornbuckle has never left basketball. These days she's the brains behind Flexx by Lex, a player physical and mental development program she leads in Knoxville. She also offers player development and leadership speaking through the platform (and partners with local organizations such as the YMCA to bring her platform to youth athletes) and is the host of the podcast "Champs Circle."