Kim Caldwell has landed her first two commitments this transfer portal cycle for the Lady Vols. First, Liberty’s Avery Mills joined. Then, on Thursday, Northern Arizona’s Naomi White committed.
There’s one specific thing in common with both of these pickups that is pointing us in the direction of what Caldwell is looking for this year. Both can shoot the cover off the basketball.
Mills is coming off a season at Liberty in which she averaged 15.3 points per game on a staggering 42.7% shooting from three on 7.4 attempts per game. White averaged 20.8 points on 36.5% shooting from range on 7.9 attempts per game. Her looks at NAU were also commonly of a high degree of difficulty.
In Caldwell’s system, threes come in abundance. That was one of the issues this past season, though. Tennessee had a limited pool of consistent shooters. Despite taking the fourth-most threes (917) of any team in the country and the most of any Power Four program, it hit just 30.5% of those attempts, the 191st-best team percentage.
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Compare that to her first year with the Lady Vols, in which Tennessee stormed to the Sweet 16 and upset UConn in the regular season. That year, her team attempted 1,054 threes and connected on 32.5%. That may not seem like much of a difference, but that’s 63 more threes made over the course of the season.
This was an issue that Caldwell noted heading into the season. Before the team played any games, she recognized that she needed players to step up and hit shots from distance. After having seven every-game players hit over 30% of threes her first year, it dropped to just four this past season, though.
There’s certainly room to improve from range compared to Caldwell’s first year, as well. However, the pick up of the first two portal commitments in Mills and White is a really strong start. With no returners from this past season and just one incoming freshman still signed, Caldwell is going to have to keep stacking shooters through the portal.
