Lady Vols basketball is back in action this Sunday for a road trip to Alabama. Ahead of the matchup, Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell met with the media.
She was asked about preparing for the Tide, the injury status of her players, her freshman class and more.
Here’s what she said.
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On if she expects Talaysia Cooper to play
“Yeah, she should. She’s been practicing.”
On if she expects Kaniya Boyd to play
“She’s been practicing.”
On if it helps to have both back
“It helps in practice. We have more bodies. We have more subs. Our players like it. And then, again, you never want to be without a player in the middle of SEC play. You want to be able to get used to your rotations playing with each other. And so, it will be good to have them both back.”
On the primary focus at practice being rebounded
“We have started every practice with a rebounding drill and then emphasized it throughout practice. We’ve showed it. Just continue to do what we’ve tried to do. And then, I think it comes down to them believing that it’s gonna cost us a game.”
On making sure the team doesn’t come out slow after a week off
“Yeah. I think that they’re gonna be… I hope that they’re gonna be ready to play. Where we’ve been going against each other for all this time, and just need to be focused and ready for the challenge and continue to take every game seriously.”
On there being close SEC games last night
“Yeah, I think so. I’m gonna talk to them about it and just kind of open-ended ask what their thoughts are and what they think about it. And it’s always interesting if you don’t give them a little bit of guidance on their answer to see what they come up with. I’m kind of interested to see what they say.”
On what she hopes they say
“I hope that they realize that we have gotten better and that we can do this. That’s what I hope that they say, but you never know what’s gonna come out of their mouths.”
On how important it was to start 4-0 in SEC play
“Yeah. You have to win the games you can and you have to take care of business. And I think you just have to continue to do that, and the SEC moves so quickly, you can’t get too high, too low, either way. You just have to continue to focus on your next game.”
On what part of the team’s identity she wants most visible against Alabama
“I want it to look like our practice. I think that they’re a team that can really slow you down around their sets, and we want it to continue to look up tempo, fast-paced. We want to force turnovers. We wanna play fast. And I think that we still haven’t quite gotten over the hump of having it look the way I want it to look. And so, after this, this is our last big chunk of practice before we have a big chunk of practice going into the NCAA. So, hopefully, we can really start to look like a team that I want to put on the floor.”
On where the team has grown the most in SEC play
“I think we’re sharing the ball better. I think we’re moving the ball better. I think our shot selection is better.”
On how much of that is the point guard position
“Not much.”
On Deniya Prawl’s role
“We want more out of her. But again, I think all of our freshmen, we need something out of them. Again, that’s what they’re here to do. And sometimes you think that five and five is not enough. Five and five in the SEC is, then it turns to nine and nine, and then it turns to 12 and 12, and then it turns to 16 and 10, and then you’re a pro, right? You build it. And we don’t live in a world where you want to build it. You live in a world where we want to come and be great right away. And so, for her, just let’s continue. She can do that. Five and five for her for the remainder of SEC play, she could probably do eight and five, but let’s just say five and five. She can do that. She can rebound. She has good size. She can get to the rim. She’s playing with more confidence. And so, I just want her to continue to play with that confidence.”
On Jaida Civil building off her last game
“I think that Jaida is just another great example of you need to be consistent. And so, she had some good practices. She had some practices where she kind of reverted a little bit. And so, just staying on her, making sure that she is going to the rim, she is getting the ball in her hands more. And so, she sees that confidence, she sees that good game and she can build on it.”
On how Jaida Civil’s scoring production changes the team
“It’s huge. I mean, it makes people have to guard somebody else. You can’t quite be in your gaps as much. You can’t double-team. She plays with Janiah a lot. You can’t double-team Janiah, and now you have Mia, that’s shooting from three. So, it spaces the floor a lot more for what we want to do.”
On if Jaida Civil is becoming a more confident scorer
“I think she is becoming more confident. She’s the type of player that will look at you and be like, ‘No, this is my role, this is my role, this is my role.’ But confidence for her looks like she’s doing it every day in practice. She’s not making a mistake and then stop doing it. And so, I think that is what confidence looks like for her.”
On managing hitting a wall with freshmen in SEC play
“I think we can’t answer that. That wall is… We’re not near that wall yet. That wall is gonna come back half of February. And you kind of got to see where your team is at and see what you’re playing for and see what’s at stake, and then motivate them that way. I definitely think we hit that wall last year. And so, it’s something we definitely want to get in front of, but we’re not to the end of the season. We’re still very much early in SEC play. We should still have excitement. We need to continue to, to be where we are right now.”
On if the wall may hit earlier with a younger roster
“I think it will, but I don’t think it’s gonna hit in January, and I don’t think it’s gonna hit the first week of February. And then, then we look at it then.”
On what stands out about Alabama
“They’re a great team. They run a lot of sets. They are very disciplined. They’re very balanced. I think that is a tough matchup for us is they want to run their sets. They shoot the three really well. And so today we’re, anytime someone hits a three, it’s worth six. We gotta eliminate middle drives and guard the 3-point line. We have to win the rebounding battle if we want a chance to come out of there with a win.”
On if having former Alabama assistant Roman Tubner on the staff is helpful
“I think it’s helpful.”
On if this is a test of shot selection at Alabama
“I do. I think it is. I think it’s a good test to see if we can guard the 3-point line, if we can hold them to a number of threes, which we haven’t picked yet and we haven’t talked about yet. And then, you know, sometimes another team hits threes, you want to settle for them, and we gotta attack. We gotta get to the rim. We have to go get multiple opportunities every time.”
On how her team has defended threes this year
“You know, it’s not ever where I want it to be. I think we’ve always set a goal and they’ve been to that goal at halftime. And so, really talking about taking value in that locating shooters. And a lot of the SEC is driving, driving, driving. And so, you have a few of these outlier teams that are gonna shoot a lot of threes, and so you got to make sure that you go on the road, you say, ‘Protect the rim, protect the rim, load to the ball, load to the ball.’ You’re playing Alabama, you gotta find a body, find a body, find a body. So, there are little changes that you have to work on going into games like this.”
On if she pairs players like Jaida with others to gain confidence
“No, not particularly. I just try to coach her like I would coach a senior. ‘Go, go do this. Go do this. Go do this. Nope, that’s not how you do it.’ Just putting the ball in her hands, giving her space and telling her to do it over and over and over. ‘Okay, you missed one. Do it again. Oh, you missed one. I don’t care. Do it again.’ Just teaching her like you would teach anyone else.”
