The Lady Vols basketball program is back to practice as they prepare for the 2025-26 season. This will mark the second under Kim Caldwell after she helped lead Tennessee to the Sweet 16 and a win over UConn in year one.
On Thursday, Caldwell met with the media for the first time since year one in Knoxville was finalized. She fielded questions on incoming freshmen, new transfers, big-time returners, Ruby Whitehorn’s status and more.
Here is everything she said.
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On if she has an update on Ruby Whitehorn, the next step in the process
“No, it’s a frustrating situation. We love Ruby, but she is suspended indefinitely. And because it’s an ongoing legal matter, that’s really all we’re allowed to discuss right now.”
On her policy when there are off-the-court issues
“It kind of is a case-by-case situation. This one is obviously a really tough one.”
On how much further along she is right now compared to last season
“That’s a good question. I feel like we’re behind. I don’t love where we’re at, but I’m also not a positive coach or person, so we always want to be further along than where you are. I think our players are picking up on things a little bit better. We do have some players that have had some experience that are on the floor, which helps a little bit better leadership. But I would like to be further along.”
On what she likes about this group
“I think they’re hungry. I think they are excited, which is great, when you have a group that is excited to play your style of play. That comes ready to work every single day. It’s refreshing as a coach to just get a new group, especially when you have so many young ones, that they don’t know any better other than to come to work or come to practice every day and work hard.”
On if she’s felt like she’s ever been ahead in the summer, if this is a normal feeling
“I’ve had three whole summers in my career… I think last summer, maybe in hindsight, when I looked at our year in review of last summer, I wonder if we did too much, and that’s why we didn’t have legs in March. So I as a coach have really tried to say, we’re not going to grind them into the ground. If we don’t get to this, we don’t get to this. And as a result of that, it’s not the normal pace that I like to practice at, but I’m trying to do a better job of realizing it’s a long season.”
On how returners have reacted to the change
“I think they appreciate it. And I think that when we are together, they’re giving everything they have, which I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
On her biggest priorities this fall before games start
“We need to find a way to be resilient. We need to overcome adversity. We don’t have necessarily a 3-point shooter. So we need people to step up and fill that role. We have a bunch of athletes. We have a bunch of people that are really good for us on both sides of the ball, but we need people to really accept the roles and kind of become obsessed with the role we need them to play.”
On balancing returners and freshmen
“It’s nice. It’s nice to have some people that know what they’re doing and that you don’t have to explain everything brand new. And you have some additional coaches, in a sense, that they can get to the players or their teammates before I do. We can talk a little bit better. The drills aren’t new. And then again, when you have this many freshmen, they don’t know anything other than to work hard in every single drill. They don’t know which drills suck. They don’t groan, they don’t roll their eyes. They just do it and they do it with everything they have.”
On if she likes the tough out-of-conference schedule
“No. Do I think it’s necessary to make sure that we’re tested and we know who we are going into SEC play? Yes.”
On if she is excited about football season
“We are excited. I mean, football season is a phenomenal time around here, and you can already feel the buzz on campus. You can tell that it’s coming. It’s great for us. With recruits, Coach does a great job. He’ll talk to our recruits for us, which is so nice and kind. And he knows their names, he knows where they’re from. He does such a great job. And I think that’s something that every coach here does a really good job of, is we support each other. And so we’re excited to get to watch them play.”
On her takeaways from year one going into year two
“There’s about five pages worth of just little things here and there. Whether it’s more team bonding, a lighter summer load, there’s more film, more individual film, extra shooting. There’s just a ton of different things that we can try to get a little bit better, and that’s what you have to do year after year, is look at your past year and find ways you can improve.”
On what she’s seen from Janiah Barker this summer, her role
“I think that she’s going to be a great leader for us. She is vocal. She hasn’t been on the floor a whole lot. But she’s in the gym and she is loud. She is leading people, she is cheering, she is saying the right things. I don’t know that she’s necessarily had a strong leadership role in the past, but we are really going to rely on her to have that here.”
On what this offseason looks like for Jersey Wolfenbarger
“She’s a player that is made to play the way we want to play. She’s so long and so big, but she runs so well. She can play multiple positions. We’re still working on her 3-point shot. I want her to kind of get her confidence back in that and as I walked up here, I saw her out there shooting threes, so that was good. I think she takes that seriously. But she’s really good in transition. She’s good at protecting the rim, and she’s just been doing that.”
On if there was a moment she saw the positives from last year during his offseason
“I think when you look at last year, and I will always say this, I appreciate that team. I love those players. To make it to the Sweet 16 in year one, we wanted a little bit more, but that was a great step for our program. If that group doesn’t buy in, and they don’t play hard, and they don’t represent us well, then we’re not able to recruit the way we want to recruit. We’re not able to build the way we want to.”
On Zee Spearman playing for the USA in a 3×3 tournament
“I think one thing Zee struggled with last year was confidence, and I think being able to represent our country has been huge for her, because I think she realizes that she’s not the player she was when she got here. The sky’s the limit for her, and just continuing to build her confidence and show her who she is now vs. who she used to be, it’s going to be an ongoing battle with her, but USA Basketball definitely helped, and it was fun to watch her play.”
On Kaiya Wynn’s injury status
“Kaiya is cleared. She’s back in action, so it’s good to have her back on the floor. It was a long road for her, so I think yesterday was her last day of having to go to rehab, and now she’s back and we celebrated that. I’m proud of her. She has gotten back into things, and she has hit failure, and she has not blinked, she has not pouted, she has not quit. She’s not given up. And I know that that’s a hard injury to come back from. We praise her publicly because to see her handle it and not show any emotion or any frustration, that’s tough, and she’s a tough player for that.”
On how Talaysia Cooper is different now than when Caldwell got to campus
“I think she knows what to expect. I do think Coop is still very far from her ceiling. She can be one of the best players in the country, and so we are working every day to make sure she sharpens some things up and can get there. Because I have all the faith in the world of her on the court talent. She just needs to continue to work and continue to grind.”
On if any of the freshmen have stood out
“I think all of our freshmen have done a great job. They don’t know any better. So again, it’s a clean slate. It’s refreshing. You don’t have to really go back and unteach a whole lot of things that they’ve learned at this level. They just go out there and do it. I’m thankful that we have so many players that are kind of made to play this way. This time last year, we were saying, go, go, go, do more, do more, shoot quicker. You don’t have to do that with this group. Our problems right now is we’re playing too fast. We need to slow ourselves down and I would rather have it be on that side than the other.”
On Deniya Prawl’s injury status
“She’s good. You guys will see her today (at practice). She is a very good player. She’s a little out of shape. We just talked about that in the office, but she knows that. So she is a very, very special player. She’s smooth. She can score at all three levels, put her head, go down to the rim. I think last practice was her best practice of just getting to the rim. Not finishing the way she wants to, but she’s got some time to get her legs underneath her.”
On how much easier it is to have veteran players who can coach teammates
“It makes things go quicker. You’re on the floor, communication is better. I can watch it happen. I’ll watch somebody make a mistake, and I’ll be walking over to talk to them, and a player already has them. So that type of leadership is huge, and it will just speed everything up.”
On what she learned last fall about recruiting
“We learned a couple things about our visits of maybe where we want to do things. You spend a lot of time on your visits eating. So let’s speed that process up. You think I’m kidding, but when you have visits every weekend and you’re doing three sit-down meals a day for three days, it adds up. So speeding those processes up. Our players are our best recruiters, so getting our recruits in front of our players as much as possible.”
On the reaction this summer after recruiting well
“I recruit the same. I just recruit the players I want to recruit. I don’t pay a lot of attention either way to anyone’s reaction, positive or negative.”
On how Mia and Mya Pauldo are adjusting to college
“I think they love it. They’re happy every day. Our freshmen are great. They got their little scooters and zip all over campus. They have not missed a beat in practice. I don’t think you would be able to tell who’s freshmen. I think you can watch practice today and you won’t say, alright, that’s a freshman mistake. They don’t really do that, and so that says a lot about them. But they’re leaders, they’re not scared of anything. They’re tough. They’re always in the gym. I’d say they’re in the gym more than, or just as much as anyone else.”
On Jaida Civil’s personality
“She’s got a different on the court personality at times. So she is cool. She is very quiet off the floor. She’s funny. She has a good personality. And our first week, it was very fun as a coach to watch her and Coop go head to head. And she will be very good for Talaysia Cooper because they’re very similar in skill set, and when they guard each other, they want to guard each other. They want to make each other better. And that’s what we wanted with this recruiting class, was to make everyone better.”
