Last season, Lady Vols basketball brought in five freshmen and three transfers with expectations through the roof. The freshman class featured three McDonald’s All-Americans, with each piece expected to make an instant contribution. The transfer class ranked as the top group in the country by ESPN.
However, things fell apart down the stretch. Tennessee hit a wall and went into the NCAA Tournament on a significant losing streak that it couldn’t snap as a 10-seed in the Round of 64. After the year, every potential returner left for the portal and found a new home. Kim Caldwell also hired two new assistant coaches, Bill Ferrara and Isoken Uzamere, to replace the departing Gabe Lazo and Roman Tubner.
Ferrara and Uzamere were tasked with finding 14 players to join incoming freshman Gabby Minus to complete the 2026-27 roster. In that effort, there was a significant difference in approach.
To land the highly touted class of the past, Tennessee was flashy. It held big photo shoots, including the use of orange and blue Lamborghinis inside Food City Center.
Lambos to McDonald’s kid!!! Love me 2 🍔🍔double quarter pounders with cheese 😉 toooomaaaa!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/akw7w8Gqen
— Coach Gabe Lazo (@CoachGabeLazo) November 11, 2024
More From RTI: Everything New Lady Vols Basketball Assistant Coach Bill Ferrara Said in First Press Conference
This time around, it was much less flashy. There were still photos in UT uniforms, but the scale of everything was turned down. Instead, the pitch became Caldwell’s personality.
“One of the first things I said to Kim, and this is on the very first phone call and I haven’t been offered the job yet, but we’re just having conversations and I was like, okay, here’s the deal, I’m excited, I want to be part of this, Tennessee’s not a place that you do Lambos at,” Ferrara said. “Like, that’s just not it. So, yeah, the pitch is Kim’s personality. We’re going to tell you the real, we’re going to tell you how it is, how hard it’s going to be. We’re going to tell you what it’s going to be, really, like, you got a question? Great. We’re going to answer everything. I watched her answer every question honestly.
“… We just told them how it’s going to be said, it’s going to be hard. We said we’re going to be waking you up at six in the morning on Fridays, and we’re going to be running you on the track. We said that we’re going to be pressing everybody. And that’s the best way to attract what you want. You want hard-working kids with a chip on their shoulder? You have to tell them what it’s going to be like. You can’t roll out Lamborghinis and lie to them. So, it’s been fun for me to watch Kim do that.”
The result was a total roster reconstruction in a tight window. Tennessee landed 13 transfers and an additional incoming freshman signing to fill the 15-player roster.
The expectations for the group on the outside are all over the place. Some are skeptical of what the team can accomplish, while others include the Lady Vols in their top 25. However, with the new approach, Ferrara assured that the team’s goals are past just making March Madness.
