On Sunday afternoon, Lady Vols basketball suffered arguably its worst loss in program history. While losing on the road to No. 3 South Carolina is certainly explainable, the 43-point margin of defeat set a new program record.
Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell is well aware that that type of showing is not acceptable. As a result, she’s not taking this week like any other loss. Instead, she’s emphasizing how important the response will be.
“I think that it’s not acceptable in this program to lose the way we lost, and I think everyone knows that, and I think they know that. I know that. Our fan base knows that,” Caldwell said. “It’s not the standard here at Tennessee, and again, you want to get a response out of them. You don’t want it to be okay. It’s not going to be okay. We can’t go after a loss like that and just come back in and treat it like another loss.
“We can’t just, ‘Okay, let’s watch the film, and let’s move on.’ Like, we need to address some things. We need to fix it. We need to do it with a sense of urgency because we’re still in a really good position to achieve our goals. But we have to just continue to fix some behaviors and change some things.”
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Since the loss, by the time Caldwell met with the media on Thursday, the Lady Vols had gotten together for just one practice. She did say that she’s hopeful the team will continue to have the right response, though.
This is due to the tough conversations she’s had with her team this week. In response, Caldwell says the team has looked her in the eye and expressed a level of confidence that she believes is authentic.
Now, she’s hoping to see it on the floor.
“I think for us, a response would be know your scout, do scout-specific things, adjust to the in-game adjustments in real time,” Caldwell said. “The biggest thing for us is play with some passion, play with some fire, do it as a team, do it consistently, be the hardest playing team on the floor.”
Next, Tennessee hosts Kellie Harper’s Missouri squad. This will be Harper’s first return as a coach to Knoxville since she was fired as the Lady Vols’ head coach. She was also a multi-time national champion player under Pat Summitt. The game against the Tigers is set for 6:30 p.m. ET. It will air on SECN+.
Her team has shown flashes, but has run into its fair share of struggles this year, creating the opportunity for a strong bounce-back from UT.
