Lady Vols basketball is a day away from meeting NC State in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to open the NCAA Tournament. Ahead of the Round of 64 clash, Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell met with the media.
Caldwell was asked about preparing for NC State, the freshmen class’ March Madness debut and more.
Here’s what she said.
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Q. How does the tournament provide a fresh start for your team after having a losing streak going into it?
KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, I think any time you get into March and in March Madness it’s definitely a different buzz, a different vibe around it. There’s some excitement, there’s some juice. You had, we have a significant chunk of time where we can practice and kind of have a fresh start there where you have time to put things together. It’s exciting.
Q. You’ve had some time now after the Selection Show to get the installation of the game plan and stuff. How do you feel like the team’s accepted what you want to do in this game?
KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, I think that we have watched our film from the last time we played them and know where we need to get better and know that they’re a different team and we’re a different team going into it. I think we have some good juice going into this game.
Q. What’s your message to this freshmen class as they embark on this unknown here in the NCAA tournament?
KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, being we have a few that have never been here in March, and it’s exciting to watch them be excited. Just little things, from signage in your hotel, signage when you walk here, things being a little bit different in tournament play. Just remembering that when you’re still playing this time of year it’s exciting, it means something, it matters, and to enjoy every second.
Q. I speak to Cooper in the locker room and she says she doesn’t know why she was benched in the last game. Do you want to share anything more about your decision there?
KIM CALDWELL: No, it was a coach’s decision. We’re going to move on and I think we’ll get a really good version of her tomorrow.
Q. We talked to Janiah Barker before this, and she mentioned the threat that Zoe Brooks poses on the offensive and defense defensive glass. Can you talk a little bit about your rebounding game plan heading into this game and the role that hustle will play?
KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, I think we have really focused on boxing out, boxing out shooters. There were some really key plays down the stretch when we first played them where we didn’t box out, and they got multiple possession and it really did seal the game for them. We’ve been pretty inconsistent with our rebounding, but when we were playing our best basketball we were rebounding the ball pretty well on both ends. We know that if we want to play a possession-based game it’s something we need to get back to. We tied on the glass the first time, so we want to be plus four or five in that area. But that’s going to be hard because they do rebound the ball really well from all five positions.
Q. I know your team faced Khamil Pierre obviously last year and opener this year. What’s the plan to deal with her in this one and how can you kind of minimize her impact?
KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, she’s tough. She will find ways to go get every single rebound if you let her and you don’t put a body on her and she can score multiple different ways too. She’s a good transition player in her size and so making sure that we’re on high alert knowing where she is and trying not to let her get anything easy. What makes her so special is she makes hard look easy.
Q. We talked about it a little bit in Knoxville, but how is the prep different if at all making it a rematch with the Wolfpack and how can you see where your team has changed from the opener to today.
KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is we know that it was a close game and we have something to prove of trying to get that game back. I think I like our, the way our team has handled it. We let one slip early in the year and let’s see really who we are now. Because a long season has gone by in between and we have gotten better and then we’ve kind of hit a rough patch and trying to really identify who we are in March.
Q. There’s been a lot of talk about the infamous Tennessee press. Will you talk about the chaotic defensive scheme and the press that you run and how that might impact, actually would be crucial in impacting the outcome of tomorrow’s game?
KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, we want it to look like it should. It hasn’t looked like it should in a month, a month and a half. And I think that that’s really been a big part of our problem is we kind of loss our identity and what we want to do. And we really haven’t been pressing, we haven’t been pressing with a purpose. And we need to get back to flying around, we need to get back to guarding. And again, a big part of our problem was we weren’t guarding in a press and we weren’t guarding in a half court, and we really weren’t doing much of anything. We didn’t have an identity.
Q. A follow-up on the press. Do you feel like there’s one specific area that needs to improve or is there more of an overall improvement that needs to happen?
KIM CALDWELL: I think everyone needs to be on the same page and we have to do it. We have gotten ourselves in situations where we’re just not. We maybe start the first two minutes of the game that way, and then we bail on it and we play, we don’t have an identity. I think that’s really been the cause of a lot of problems our last month.
Q. Can you tell me a little bit about that unique style where it came from the genesis of how you want to do that press and why you want to play that way?
KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, we wanted to play fast, that’s something I’ve always believed in. Again, we haven’t played fast. We’re not really scoring the ball at a high clip. We’re not really pressing. We are not really flying around. You want to do it in a way that wins you the possession battles and gets you about 20 more shots than your opponent. We weren’t doing that either. We’re getting maybe one more shot, or two more shots less. I think that when you play this way and you play a style that’s different and an aggressive style, you have to be a hundred percent committed to it and you can never have a Plan B. And that’s the one thing I would always tell people is don’t put a Plan B in. Where we messed up is we put in a Plan B. And again we kind of lost ourselves. And we talked about that the first day back in practice, so we need to get pack to what we believe in, we need to get back to what we were recruited to do, because that is when we were playing our best was in January.
Q. You’ve mentioned the identity of Tennessee basketball a few times. What are some key components of that that you’re hoping to get back to in March?
KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, I would love to get back to being the hardest playing team on the floor. That means 50/50 balls we’re getting on them, we’re taking charges, we’re diving on loose balls, we have great energy, we’re playing as a team. We’re giving high-fives. Our bench is having fun. We’re scoring a lot of points. We’re playing through runs, 10 points up, down 10 points, up 10 points, doesn’t feel like anything. And we’re playing fast and the game looks a whole lot like this (indicating.) And again we haven’t seen that version of ourselves in a while.
Q. Nya mentioned earlier that you can tell when the team is having fun. Have you seen them having fun in practice this week?
KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, and that says a lot about them, because it’s a long stretch. And any time you practice as hard as we do, and up-and-down as we do, and we had to get our legs back and we had to get back in shape and we had to kind of again work on a press, work on playing fast on offense. That requires a lot of full court drills, and it happened without our practice team being here, so it was against each other, but they did a good job of having fun with it.
Q. What’s it like to be the head coach at Tennessee, so much opportunity and yet maybe pressure, what is it like?
KIM CALDWELL: It’s incredible for so many reasons. There’s so much history around you and you see it every single day and you get to be thankful for it every single day. We have a great administration. Our players are very spoiled. Our coaching staff is very spoiled. The way we do things is first class, it’s high class. It’s really remarkable at how quickly anyone can get spoiled and used to it. Because I came from Division-II where we didn’t even give our players a water bottle after a game, it was, fill up your Gatorade out of the Gatorade from the game. And now we’re spoiled and we travel well and we’re treated well and we eat well. And there’s so much history and we’re trying to build it to a place that’s bigger than ourselves. And it’s about Tennessee and it’s about our fan base and it’s about our history, and we really want to make it about that. I don’t know that we’ve done a great job so far this season, but there’s still some season left for us to do that.
Q. We talked a lot about the defensive end of the ball in this presser. How about the offensive end, what are the keys to unlocking your offensive success tomorrow against a tough NC State defense?
KIM CALDWELL: I think the most important thing is we share the ball. We don’t try to force anything. We don’t shoot on three or four people. We share the ball, we space the floor. And then we go get offensive rebounds for each other, and we try to get multiple possessions. But I think again sharing the basketball, playing together, playing with a flow, playing through things, missing a couple shots in a row, not hanging our heads, continuing to get stops is really important for us.
Q. What’s one message you’ve been preaching to your team this whole week?
KIM CALDWELL: I think there’s been a lot of messages we’ve been preaching. I think basketball-wise it’s been effort and it’s been rebounding. And I think general-wise we need to be happy to be here, we need to have some excitement, we need to again appreciate the moment. There’s a lot of teams all over the country that are done.
