Lady Vols basketball went to the wire with Belmont, but pulled out a 68-58 win over the Bruins. After the game, Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell met with the media to give her thoughts on the game.
She was asked about offensive struggles, when the team will click and more.
Here’s what she said.
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Opening statement
“When we talked as a team, we knew that we were going to have to patch this one together. We’re not playing great right now and we haven’t had a lot of practice time or space to fix it. It’s just the way our schedule has been loaded. It’s been a grind. We haven’t had a string of more than two days of practice without a game around it since we started playing games. It’s good to get out of here with a win because it was touch and go at times and we knew that that was a great team. Now, we finally do have some time to fix it and we will.”
On the status of Alyssa Latham
“We have no timeline for her return. She’s out for personal reasons.”
On inefficiencies from range, the offense going forward
“I think it’s something that we can fix. We are not that bad of 3-point shooters. We are definitely stronger drivers than we are shooters, but it shouldn’t be that rough. I’m surprised the fourth quarter percentage was as high as it was, to be honest, but that’s good. That’s a promising sign. It takes a lot of time to gel, to be able to hit threes, hit threes when you’re tired, hit them in pace. And so that percentage will go up, and a lot of it is shot selection. A lot of it is one more. A lot of it is, hey, we settled for a three, but we had a layup, and I think everyone can see that.”
On Kaniya Boyd’s play in the fourth quarter
“I think she had a different mindset coming into this game. I think she was really good in shoot around. She was good in practice the day before. She was talking. I think when she is talking and she’s a leader and she’s having fun, that’s when she’s at her best. She is a phenomenal defender. I think she’s that spark player for us, and she will get on a fifty-fifty ball. She will go rip down a rebound. She doesn’t do anything for herself. It’s all about for her teammates, and players like her are invaluable.
On playing a good mid-major like Belmont, having four in-state games in a row
“It kinda lined up like that in order. I think that some of them were return games that we already had in building the schedule. I think anytime you take over a job, it takes some time to build your schedule out the way you want because you’re still finishing up contracts from the previous coaching staff, and then you’re starting to take some games that maybe you don’t necessarily wanna take, but you’re taking it just to fill your schedule in a rush, and then that comes with return games. This game on the schedule is on the schedule because they’re an NCAA tournament team and you wanna play them early, and you wanna see what you’re made of. You wanna see if you’ll respond. That team is gonna beat — they beat P4 teams every year. So we knew that we were getting a test out of it. And our schedule this year is just we’re playing whoever we can play and we’re trying to grow from it and learn from it. And, again, I get asked a lot, what are you changing? What are you changing? How are you growing? What are you learning? I didn’t learn anything about my team last year in November. Nothing. We’re learning a lot right now.”
On not having offensive cohesion
“I think it’s the offense is still up and down. Obviously, it’s not where we want it to be. Some things are getting a little bit better. I mean, sense of urgency was at least relevant at times today. Playing hard was relevant at times. Our press looked like we actually had a press. So we’re taking some steps forward. But, again, when you have one day of practice and then the next day is, alright, a prep day and you have to kind of manage your load, it’s tough to really hammer some things home. So I think all of it will get better.”
On having the right runs at the right times
“I thought that we were poised when we needed to be poised. That was good to learn about your team. It was good to see. We wanted to really guard the 3-point line. They were making 10 threes a game. We were making 10 threes a game. And whenever you play a team that shoots the ball like we do and takes and makes more threes than we do, then you know it’s gonna come in chunks. And it did for them, right? They got hot. They saw a few go in, they got a spark, and then we did the same thing. We got our run at the right time.”
On if the tougher schedule is why things aren’t clicking as early as last year
“Absolutely. That’s why we played it. That’s why we did it here, is to figure it out and figure it out early because I do think when you look back at our body of work last year, we figured this out late February. We figured this out, we had a stretch of games where we kinda figured some things out, and it was too late to learn if you don’t play hard, it doesn’t work. If you take bad shots, it doesn’t work. You don’t learn it early. We’re learning it now.”
On young players on the team
“I think our freshmen, anytime you can put freshmen or new players in time and score situations, you have film. You can show this turnover didn’t need to happen here. This shot didn’t need to happen here. Let’s learn this. It’s so much easier to teach them when they are watching themselves than if you’re just talking to them or you’re watching a team from the past or a different team.”
On what she’s caught over the first four games that she didn’t see last year
“I think the effort, the energy and the shot selection right now are the really important ones. And then if we’re not playing together, if we’re not playing hard, it’s going to look bad. And I think we went through that late in the year, and it’s good to get it out of the way. And then, hopefully, and the majority of my teams have figured it out towards the November. And I was telling somebody the other day, in my family, in my household, when I go home for Thanksgiving, I would tell my grandma, we’re not talking about basketball, because I was miserable. We’re not speaking about basketball. I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m gonna come home, but do not ask me one question. And then by Christmas, you can talk about it. By the end of the year, you’re happy. And that’s the season of my life. So I know that November is usually rough.”
On if Talaysia Cooper playing well can translate to the rest of the offense
“I obviously love our offense the best when we have multiple weapons, we have multiple people hitting. I think we’ve got that at the end in the fourth quarter. I like it better when it’s consistent.”
On rebounding
“Yeah. We talked about that. We know that if we don’t do it, we don’t win. And they had a really, really close game against Oklahoma. I think they were tied, very similar to our game. They were tied close to going in fourth, right around that time, and Oklahoma outrebounded them. And they should outrebound them, they’re bigger. And we talked about that. If we don’t outrebound, this team, we don’t win. And so I think they took that to heart. They listened. That’s another positive.”
On Kaniya Boyd not playing double-digit minutes
“Kaniya? She had 14.”
On what she can do in practice to continue getting double-digit minutes
“KB is just continuing to work. She’s continuing to play. Again, she was big for us tonight. Ad we need that out of her going forward. So I hope that that’s a really good positive step from today’s game is that she kinda gets her juice, her confidence back, and then she can kind of just continue to grow.”
On what she’s learned about her team so far
“Well, we are still learning, and we are still learning that if you, again, you don’t play hard, it’s not gonna work. This is more so about them trying to figure it out, right? Them learning space and pace and when to take a three and when to turn it down and when to foul and when not to foul. When we are having a frustration turnover because we don’t like what just happened. And you’re learning how to close games down the stretch, and you’re learning who your leaders are, and you’re learning who will make the selfless play. And you’re learning all of those things in all of these difficult games. And I think we’re not, again, we’re not where we need to be, but you have to figure it out now. You have to.”
On if she wants the team to move the ball more
“Offensively, we want more ball movement. We wanna be able to straight line drive it all the way to the rim after the ball’s been swung a couple times, and we’re attacking off of a closeout. First and foremost, we wanna score in transition. We’re not even running in transition, so that’s gonna be nonexistent. It was existant at the end of the game. I don’t know why we decided to run then. No idea. And then sharing the ball, ball screen offense, driving, kicking, playing two feet out of paint, relocating to the top of the key if you don’t have an open shot, then one more. We are gonna take a lot of threes. I mean, we practice it. I’m gonna give them that freedom. Our percentage will get better, but we can’t be a team that lives and dies by it. You gotta shoot it with confidence. We have to have teammates that are gonna go get your offensive rebound, and that’s a big part of threes that if you take one, even if you take a bad one, your teammates aren’t gonna pout. They’re gonna go get ball. We’re gonna kick it back out when we’re gonna play. And we had some good offensive possessions where we had multiple offensive rebounds. There’s not a lot great about our offense right now. Our finishing isn’t good. Our passing isn’t good. Our shooting isn’t good. And again, there’s a lot of excuses we can make we just got to fix it.”
