Lady Vols basketball is back in action this Thursday when Tennessee heads to the mid-state to square off with MTSU on the road. Ahead of the matchup, UT head coach Kim Caldwell met with the media to give her thoughts.
She was asked about offensive woes, the challenge of playing MTSU, her new signees and more.
Here’s what she said.
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On if she has an update on the status of Alyssa Latham (personal reasons)
“No update right now.”
On how practice has been this week
“We’ve strung good practices together, so I think, hopefully, we’re headed in the right direction again. It’s gonna continue to take time. We gotta see some shots going in, hopefully, on Thursday.”
On what makes a practice good
“I think being able to play through mistakes. I think you obviously see some balls on the floor where we just lose our minds for a second, and it was just this horrendous basketball and cutting those down in practice while still having a high volume practice, seeing more shots go in, taking quality shots, having our pressure look the way it should look.”
On how she prioritizes during a week off
“I think right now the biggest thing is our offense. Everything seems to go around that when we’re hitting shots or playing a little bit harder. Our defense looks better. We have higher energy. The mistakes tend to be not as obvious because the shots going in. So we’re really working on that, but we’re trying to fix everything all at once. And then I think you have windows into your schedule that allow for that and all.”
On where the half court offense is at
“It’s trending up, but there are some times where it still kinda looks where we’re not making the right read out. Then, again, we cut our offense up after our last game, and we had a lot of wide-open threes we didn’t hit. And so just, like, if we hit a couple of those, then our offense doesn’t look as bad. So continuing to shoot the ball with confidence, making the right play, not trying to drive on top of two people, communicating, being on the same page. There are times where we just look like five people on the floor but maybe two people are communicating. But having all five players be in sync.”
On who has stepped up in communicating this week
“I think everyone has, and we’ve made them do it.”
On if she has had a team this new before
“I have. This team very much reminds me of my last Division II team in Glenville. I think we had 12 or 13 new players, and it took a lot of time. And so I am going back, and I am comparing notes between that team, and we are right on pace for how upset we are, how uncomfortable we are, how we are kind of in this dark space where we just need to push through and get over the hump. And, again, when the ball goes in, a lot of things are gonna change.”
On managing her patience
“It’s a fine line because I know that this is normal, but I can’t – it’s like, oh, this is normal. We’ll figure it out. We still have to do things to figure it out. We still have to move with a sense of urgency. This is not okay. This is not acceptable. We’re not gonna win like this. We have to move like we have to make some changes and fix it. And your players have to believe that. Your players have to stay the course and understand that all of their numbers and everything that they are doing right now is only gonna get better. And you break that down, you explain that to them, and you continue to move forward. And I’m thankful for this week that we have been able to work on some things.”
On if the team is responsive to her coaching
“Yeah. I think so. I think they wanna win, and they’re focused on that, and that’s what’s most important.”
On where the team made the most progress this week
“I think with their energy and their effort. And I think when you’re a young person, you have a long week of practice, and there’s really not a game in sight, and you just see them on a schedule. It’s easy just to mope and whine and complain and make excuse after excuse. But they came in, they wanted to get better. They know they wanna get better. And that makes my job a lot easier that I don’t have to pull it out of them. That they are they’re receptive to it.”
On how she deals with youth at point guard
“I don’t really see it as a problem. Our youth isn’t a problem. I think our young ones are doing great for us.”
On having belief in players
“I think that what everything I say to them is true, and sometimes I tell them they’re bad, sometimes I tell them they’re great. It’s gonna be honest for me 100% of the time, and I think it’s really easy to miss a couple shots or have a bad day and to go inward and think that, oh, I’m not very good or I’m not meeting this person, and you live in a world of comparison. And, no, you’re right on pace. You’re doing what you need to be doing. If the ball’s not going in the hole, go do something else.
On where the team is at in embracing roles
“I think we’re getting there. I think our big dogs are kind of established. I think we have a few more people that could probably work their way up, and then everyone else needs to raise their floor. So we’ve talked a lot about ceiling, floor. You guys are getting a front row seat to our floor.
That’s where we are right now, and we’re just gonna continue to try to move that up as individual players and as a team.”
On how much she thinks this week’s practice will translate to Thursday
“I would love it to translate, but it’s not like we’re going to play a cupcake. It’s not like we’re going somewhere, and it’s not gonna be sold out of fans that are going against us. So it’s gonna be a really big test. We need to make sure that we are ready for it. We respect that opponent. We know it’s going to be a really hard game. It’s not a game that you would normally want on your schedule right now. But, again, you wanna play the top teams. You wanna get better. So I hope it translates, so you never know.”
On the biggest challenge MTSU presents
“I mean, they’re very well coached. They run their sets very well. They’re very good defensively. I think the biggest thing for us is we’re gonna go into a hostile environment. We need to be mentally tough enough to handle it when the shots aren’t going in, when things aren’t going our way, when the calls aren’t going our way. Just play through it, handle it.”
On what has impressed her about Jaida Civil
“Yeah. She’s a competitor. She makes everyone around her better. She holds people accountable. She’s not afraid of anyone. She wants to win. And I think my biggest appreciation for her is it’s never about her. It’s never about her getting shots. It’s never about her playing. It’s never about how she feels. It’s always about, hey, how can we win? How can we win? How can we win? And I think that’s fantastic for a freshman to come in and have that about her.”
On newcomers grasping her system
“I think that we are in that phase right now. So it’s been really nice with our newcomers because they all wanted to press. They were all aggressive. They all were athletic. They all had that mindset. It wasn’t hard for them to really get up and do that. And it’s a little bit hard at times when you’re in the back wanting to rotate forward. But offensively, has taken some time of when to shoot at pace, when to shoot when you’re tired, when to shoot quick, who should get the shots, what’s a good shot, what’s a bad shot, especially when it’s early in the season and everyone’s still trying to prove themselves. Everyone is still trying to kind of jockey for position and just really we just need to settle in and take good shots and know where we’re at in the shot clock, know who should get the ball, know when a quick three is good, when a quick three is bad. Just continue to educate in real time.”
On how tough it is to teach shot selection when everyone has the green light
“It takes a lot of time to figure it out and you have to do a lot of film of where they’re taking accountability. Was this a good shot or was this a bad shot? Was this good offense or was this bad offense? And that’s what we did from our last game. They all had to say no, this was bad. No, this was good. No, this was bad. Okay. So you know the difference. So why are we going on the floor and we’re continuing to run bad offense? You see what it is. You know what it is. So let’s make a change in real time.”
On emphasizing moving without the ball
“Moving, talking, communicating. Again, making sure we’re on the same page. If one person moves and nobody knows they’ve moved, it doesn’t help us. If one person sets a screen and nobody knows that they set that screen, it does not help us. If we are wide open in the corner and we are trying to drive on three people and we don’t talk and we can’t see that, it does not help us. So making sure that we are on the same page. We’re talking. We’re running offense together, not one on five.”
On where Jersey Wolfenbarger is right now
“She’s had some good practices.”
On what signee Oliviyah Edwards brings to the table
“I think both of them are gonna do great things for us, and I think that she can be and, again, I think what we’ve proven this year is that we’re gonna trust our freshmen. We’re gonna build around our freshmen. We’re gonna put them on the floor. There’s not a lot of freshmen in the country that are getting the opportunity that our freshmen are. So we’re gonna continue to do that with people that we bring in and let them learn and let them figure it out.
“And then she’ll be one that I think will be special to watch. She’s a great kid. She wants to get better. She wants to win. She is selfless to give every aspect of, hey, we need to do what it takes to win. And to do that at a young age, especially when she has had the attention and notoriety around her, it speaks volumes of her character.”
On why signee Gabby Minus is a good fit
“Yeah. Absolutely. She’s athletic. She can move. She can run. She’s a three-level scorer. Obviously, she’s coming off of an injury, but I think that she’ll be able to step in and help right away, too.”
