The 2023-24 season will be Caroline Lilley's fifth year as the Auburn women's tennis head coach. She was named head coach on June 14, 2019.

Lilley earned her third NCAA Tournament bid and second consecutive trip to the NCAA Super Regional in 2023. Auburn completed their season with a 20-9 overall record which marked the seventh season that Auburn has reached the 20-win mark. The Tigers picked up five wins over top 25 opponents including over No. 17 San Diego and No. 8 Pepperdine during the 2023 ITA Indoor Championships as well as a 4-3 upset victory over No. 14 Miami in the NCAA Second Round. After each earning a bid into the NCAA Singles Championships, Carolyn Ansari and Ariana Arseneault each advanced to the round of 16, which earned the duo the third and fourth Singles All-American honors in program history. Additionally, Ansari was named first team All-SEC, Arseneault was named second team All-SEC, and DJ Bennett became the sixth Auburn player to earn SEC All-Freshman honors. 

In her third season on the Plains in 2022, Lilley matched the deepest run in program history, advancing to the NCAA Super Regional for the first time since 2017. The Tigers finished with a 22-6 overall record and finished the season ranked 14th in the nation. It was also a history-making SEC season as Auburn went 11-2 in league play and finished second in the final standings, the highest SEC finish by an Auburn women's tennis team. Auburn also picked up six wins over top-25 opponents including No. 15 Florida, No. 16 Washington and No. 19 Alabama. The Auburn trio of Selin Ovunc, Carolyn Ansari  and Ariana Arseneault were all named first team All-SEC. Ovunc was selected to the NCAA singles field and the tandem of Ovunc and Arseneault earned a berth in the doubles tournament as well. After the season, Lilley was named the ITA Southern Region Coach of the Year.

In her second season, Lilley helped the Tigers to tremendous success, including a berth in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, where Auburn advanced to the second round. Auburn posted an overall record of 14-9 with a 7-6 mark in SEC play, finishing sixth in the final conference standings. Under her leadership, sophomore Selin Ovunc became the program's seventh All-American (and second in singles) by advancing to the Round of 16 at the NCAA Championships. Ovunc and Carolyn Ansari were named to the All-SEC Second Team, and senior Taylor Russo was named the regional winner of the ITA Cissie Leary Sportsmanship Award. In Lilley's first full season at the helm of the program, Auburn finished with a national ranking of No. 22.

Lilley's first season at Auburn in 2020, while shortened by the global COVID-19 pandemic, showed great promise as the Tigers had recorded an 8-6 record in dual matches and a 1-3 mark in SEC play when the season was halted in March. Several student-athletes earned conference and regional accolades: senior Taylor Russo was named ITA Southern Region Senior Player of the Year and to the SEC Community Service Team, and freshman Selin Ovunc was the ITA Southern Region Rookie of the Year. Russo and Ovunc teamed up in doubles to win the ITA Southern Regional championship and were ranked as high as No. 9 nationally. As a team, the Tigers were No. 42 nationally in the final published ITA ranking of the spring.

Lilley spent the previous four seasons at the University of Kansas where she helped the Jayhawks to four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, including the program’s first-ever Big 12 Conference Championship in 2019.
 
Named assistant head coach at Kansas in December 2018, Lilley joined the KU staff as an assistant coach in May 2015 after a successful stint as an assistant coach at Gonzaga.
 
During the 2019 season, Lilley helped KU to a 21-4 record, a trip to the NCAA Sweet 16 and the Big 12 title. The Jayhawks were ranked for 16 consecutive weeks during the season, peaking at No. 7 before finishing No. 13 in the final polls. Three Jayhawks, Nina Khmelnitckaia, Janet Koch and Anastasia Rychagova all earned first-team All-America honors by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA).  The doubles team of Koch and Khmelnitckaia reached the No. 1 ranking in the country, and Kansas as a team did not lose a doubles point all season.
 
She made her presence felt immediately at Kansas in her first spring season in 2016, helping the Jayhawks reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 17 years. Kansas finished second in the Big 12 Conference, the Jayhawks highest finish in 18 years. The four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances were a program first since earning four-straight berths from 1996-99. In 2018 Lilley helped lead KU to its first victory in the NCAA Tournament since 1999.
 
National rankings became the norm for KU tennis after Lilley’s arrival; the Jayhawks appeared in the ITA rankings in all or part of every season Lilley coached at KU. In 2018 KU spent 11-straight weeks in the top-20, including a season-ending ranking of 18 in 2018, the program’s highest end-of-season ranking since 1998 (17th).
 
Individual players earned national rankings under Lilley’s tutelage. In fall 2017 junior Anastasia Rychagova became the first Jayhawk singles player to be ranked No. 1 in the country, and in May 2018 she became KU’s first singles All-American in 20 years.
 
In recognition of her work at KU, Lilley was voted ITA Central Region Assistant Coach of the Year in 2018.
 
A Portland, Oregon native, Lilley spent the two seasons prior to joining the KU staff as an assistant coach at Gonzaga, where in 2014 the Zags earned at Top 75 national ranking for the first time in program history, a feat they repeated in 2015. With her help Gonzaga signed the #7 recruiting class for mid-major schools, the highest-ranked recruiting class in school history.

National recognition is nothing new for Lilley. She had an accomplished playing career at both Kentucky (freshman and sophomore years) and Georgia Tech (junior and senior years). She was ranked with five different doubles partners throughout her college career, with a high of No. 6. She was nationally ranked in singles as well, with a high of No. 67.
 
As a junior she posted a personal-best 26-12 singles record, contributing to Georgia Tech’s consistent presence as a top-15 program in the country.

 Graduating with a business administration degree with a concentration in finance, Lilley left Georgia Tech with the second-best doubles winning percentage in Tech’s history – 69 percent (38-17, including 20-7 in dual match play).
 
Lilley earned her MBA, with a concentration in finance, from Kansas in 2018.