This offseason, Lady Vols basketball is completely overhauling its roster after a disappointing season. Tennessee lost every player from last year’s team and has already added the commitment of 11 transfers and an additional incoming freshman to join four-star signee Gabby Minus.
The roster isn’t the only piece of the program that will look different, though. Kim Caldwell also has two new assistant coaches. Gabe Lazo resigned from his position and took a job at LSU before being named the head coach at UCF. Caldwell then parted ways with Roman Tubner shortly after.
In their place, Caldwell hired a pair of new assistants with Power Four experience. First, it was former Florida State associate head coach Bill Ferrara who came in to replace Lazo. During an appearance on The Mike Keith Show, Caldwell explained the shared offensive philosophy she has with him.
“I think our offense was not the way we wanted it to look last year,” Caldwell said. “It’s not the way it’s looked in a year in my career, and Coach Bill is a firm believer in playing fast. I think that he and I have battled throughout our careers of who can lead the nation in scoring, and so no better way than to just pair up and get on the same page and work together. And so he sees basketball through the same lens that I do, of playing in transition, playing fast, shooting a lot of threes in that regard.”
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To replace Tubner, Caldwell hired Isoken ‘Coach Eas’ Uzamare. She was available after a tenure at Georgia because the Bulldogs head coach, Katie Abrahamson-Henderson, stepped down.
Caldwell described Uzamere as a great recruiter and someone who recruits gravitate to. She admitted she’s not the most outgoing, so having someone on staff who is a valuable asset.
“Coach Eas is a phenomenal human being, such a light to be around,” Caldwell said. “A great recruiter can relate to all of our players, somebody that can sit here and talk your head off, which is very the opposite of me. So it’s been great at these visits. She’ll just put on a show and talk, and we can just listen, but she can relate to players really well, and she’s done a really good job just hitting the ground running for us.”
This group joins assistant coaches Jenna Burdette, Angel Rizor and Lexie Barrier on the staff. That trio has been with Caldwell for her entire Tennessee tenure.
