With a large contingency dressed in orange at Diddle Arena on Sunday night, coach Pat Summit stepped out from the tunnel and onto the court just before tip-off.

Hearing yourself think was pretty much out of the question.

But at the end of a historic night, Diddle probably felt like anything but a second home to the Lady Vols.

Ball State’s 71-55 win against Tennessee marked historic firsts for both the Women’s NCAA Tournament and the Lady Vols.

The Cardinals were the first team to ever beat Tennessee in the first round of the tournament. Tennessee had gone 21-0 in both the first and second rounds until Sunday night.

“Our entire program obviously wants to start with the awe that we came in with yesterday for Tennessee,” Packard said.?”We did come in with awe and with complete respect for their tradition, legacy and everything that Tennessee is.”

Tennessee has 20 or more NCAA tournament accolades, including having won eight championships, more than any other team in women’s basketball and second in college basketball history only to the UCLA men’s program who have won 11, while Ball State was making its first appearance in the NCAA tournament on Sunday.

“I think our biggest challenge is for us to allow our young ladies to enjoy obviously the phenomenal victory against Tennessee,” Packard said, “It’s just a shame we can’t live in the moment a little bit longer.”

Summitt is a 1,000 plus game winning coach and has been the coach of the Lady Vols for 35 seasons. Ball State coach Kelly Packard has a career record of 59-20 and she just finished her first season as a college head coach 25-8.

Ball State junior forward Danielle Gratton said before Sunday’s game that looking at the Lady Vols as a five-seed proves that at least some people believed they were beatable.

Ball State’s offense didn’t shy away from the challenge of going against the Lady Vols as it ended the game with a 16-point win.

“Their guards did an awesome job,” Tennessee sophomore guard Angie Bjorklund said. “We were trying to switch to steal. That was our game-plan in the second half.”

Ball State shot 36.2 percent from beyond the arc, ranking them as the 24th best three-point shooting team in the nation this season.

Tennessee seemed to have found a way to prevent the Cardinals from getting too many open shots in the first half and held them to only 16.7 percent from downtown.

But in the second half, Ball State found its stride and went 5-7 to finish the game hitting 36.8 percent of their three-pointers.

Tennessee’s loss to Ball State may be viewed as one of those “once in a lifetime chances” to some, but not to Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly who watched the Cardinals historic win.

“That game last night was not a fluke,” Fennelly said, “Anyone who watched it, (Ball State) played very well.”