Lady Vols basketball and Stanford traded shots, but ultimately, it was Tennessee coming out with a 65-66 win. This was largely in thanks to Talaysia Cooper, who finished with 19 points, 10 steals, six assists, two rebounds and a steal, while also making the game-winning shot.
After the game, UT head coach Kim Caldwell met with the media to give her thoughts. She was asked about the tradition of the rivalry, forcing turnovers and more.
Here’s what she said.
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Opening statement
“A very, very ugly win on the road, but I was happy we could pull it out. I did not think we were going to. Made a lot of mistakes that we should not be making down the stretch. Didn’t shoot well. But I was really proud of our team. I don’t fluff or sugar-coat things, I was proud of our team because they played really hard when the ball wasn’t going in the hole and we found ways to get extra possessions.”
On forcing 30 turnovers
“That is a reflection of why we do what we do. We play so we can win the possession battle so we can have nights where we shoot 34, 19 and 50 and we still come away with a win.”
On the tradition of the matchup, if it was just a road game or meant more
“It was both. I think for a really long time, it was just a road game, a road game, a road game. Then once you get here, you realize, oh, we’re at Stanford. This means something. The something we got to game time, the closer my eyes started to open of the significance of this game, what this means for our sport, what it has meant to our sport. A blessing and an honor to be sitting in the seat that I’m sitting in.”
On allowing an offensive rebound on a missed free throw to tie it
“We had a lot of mistakes right there at the end of the game that we’re going to learn from. It’s much better to learn from it in game film than it is practice film. It can never happen again. We got very fortunate to come out of here with a win.”
On the substitution pattern
“You have to trust your team. I think that’s one mistake I made in the UCLA game is I didn’t trust our bench the way we needed to. We trusted them tonight. We played them. When you’re going to press and you’re gonna pressure and you’re going to play as fast as we are and you’re really gonna work for those extra possessions, it’s taxing. It’s tolling on your body. Especially at the end of a long road trip. We’ve been gone for a week now. To be able to do that and trust your bench, you have to be able to give your all and your max effort for as long as you’re possibly in there.”
On how her players respond to the substitution pattern
“I think we’re still figuring it out. We have different combinations. Still trying to figure out what works for us. Some nights it looks a lot better than others. It looks a lot better when all the people are hitting shots. I think it’s something that takes about a month, maybe two months to get used to, and then once they’re used to it, it’s second nature.”
On adjustments made in the fourth quarter
“I think we picked our defense up. I think that’s, again, fatigue a little bit. We’re not a very good third-quarter team. Something that we’ve known for quite a while now. We didn’t come out ready in the third quarter. Fourth quarter, by the end of it, we grinded them down. We started to put our head to the rim and go all the way to the rim. We shared the ball a little bit better. I thought we did a better job. I do think our team is getting better. It is not necessarily translating the way I want it to, but we did a good job of sharing the ball down the stretch. Didn’t force anything. We made the extra pass. We had two assists at the rim that were really pretty. (Talaysia Cooper) had one that was a skip across to Zee Spearman in the corner that was really nice and that one went down and it deserved to go down because it was the right play.”
