As a part of the Lady Vols basketball’s trip to Birmingham for SEC Media Days, head coach Kim Caldwell and players Janiah Barker and Talaysia Cooper met with the hosts of the SEC Network to talk about the upcoming season.
The group was asked about Caldwell’s coaching style, freshmen players, expectations and more.
Here’s what they said.
More From RTI: Everything Lady Vols Basketball Coach Kim Caldwell Said at 2025-26 SEC Media Days
On the biggest difference now compared to last year
Caldwell: “It’s so much different. It’s so nice to be able to know what to expect. You walk into a room, you know people, you know your fan base a little bit better. You have returners that can help your newcomers. You have your foundation set with your team so year two is going much more smoothly.”
On having a low floor and high ceiling, balancing returners and newcomers
Caldwell: “What I said by low floor is we can get in our own way. We don’t want to get in our own way. We have the talent to be one of the top teams, and I think that’s what you see reflected in the polls. As a coach, it’s my job to look at it, how do I make sure we get better, and better, and better. So you’re always looking at your floor and looking at ways to raise that.”
On why Barker wanted to play in Caldwell’s system
Barker: “Just the freeness of it. There’s not really a lot of plays, just a whole bunch of hooping. Just get to your bag, do what you do and feel confident in it. I think that’s the main thing that drew me in and the main thing she told me when I got here, she just wants me to be myself. I’m super excited.”
On what Cooper tells incoming players
Cooper: “Just coming in every day giving effort. Being who you are. Just coming in locked in. Being who Coach Kim wants you to be every day and taking it with a grain of salt and just listen to what the returners have already faced and learning from us.”
On the biggest lesson Cooper learned in year one under Caldwell
Cooper: “Just being confident and knowing what to expect from the SEC. Having coaches and teammates to have my back.”
On what to expect from Cooper this year
Cooper: “I’m going to be the same person I was last year. Like I said, just facing adversity and getting over the hump that we have to get over. That’s going to be the biggest part for us.”
On playing for Caldwell, Barker’s recruitment
Barker: “Recruiting, it was actually really straightforward. She came to me, we don’t have a lot of time, its your senior year, we know you have things you have to do, things you want to do. She came to me pretty straightforward. This is what it is and this is what its going to be. I appreciated that. I think she’s the same person every day. I think that’s really hard to do. To be consistent in being exactly who you want to be and what you want to be for your team. I think she does a really good job of that. I would say she looks like an innocent fifth-grade teacher. And she is not an innocent fifth-grade teacher… She’s… amazing. I don’t really know how to explain it. You have to be in our practice to see. She flips a switch on when she becomes a coach and she expects the most out of you and she’s trying to pull that out of you. She’s straight to it. Killer. Sometimes I don’t see nothing behind her eyes. Ain’t nothing wrong with that, though.”
Caldwell: “She’s not wrong.”
On what a Caldwell pregame speech looks like
Cooper: “You know when she flips the switch because she’s got the serious face. She comes in there ready to go. You can tell. Like Janiah just said, in practice, she flips that switch, you know what it is. It’s kind of hard to explain but you know when its time to go. When its go time.”
On Zee Spearman playing her best basketball, her leadership
Caldwell: “I will say, her story is an incredible story. From what she was before she came and how she has really – I think she’s the perfect example of what our system can do for a player. Just to see her confidence grow and see her be able to do things she wasn’t either able to do or allowed to do at her previous school and just thrive. She’s grown on and off the floor. I don’t know if she’s our ‘team mom.'”
On determining rotations
Caldwell: “We’re really just now getting to the thick of it. It’s fun to see them out there together. It’s special to see them out there together. The times we’ve had in practice, it’s been so nice to me and such a great feeling to know you can count on more than one person. It takes pressure off. If JB doesn’t have a good night, Coop will have her back. If Coop is in foul trouble, Zee will step up. We did some intrasquad scrimmages with our practice guys, we had to really think about who will close the game. That was great. We have the depth there. It’s been great. From the moment they all got on campus together and warmups, I was looking how big we were in warmups, it was a different feel from last year.”
On recruiting Barker
Caldwell: “She is somebody that I look at kind of like Zee. Let’s take the reins off the racehorse. Let’s let her play. Let’s give you freedom. Ask you to make mistakes. Let you play positions one through five and give you a tough matchup. Like she said, both ways it was straight to the point. She’s been recruited, she knows what she wants. I know what I want from a player. You want to do it? Let’s do it. It was a very good connection from the very beginning. It was one of my personal goals, just like with Zee, just like with Coop, to make sure she plays her very best basketball in her final season.”
On bringing Final Four experience
Barker: “Everything that I say to my teammates, they really take and run with it. I know the position that I’m in. I feel like they listen to me and they want to listen and that makes it easier. Coach Kim wants me to be that leader to them, because I’ve been in certain positions that they haven’t. Every day, I just have to be consistent. I think that’s what is challenging me to be, to be the best version of myself every day. So I can show them more than my talk does. It’s been a challenge. I’ve had hard days, I’ve had good ones. My teammates definitely pick me up and so do my coaches.”
On what hard days look like
Barker: “Just me in my head. Me being my worst enemy. Getting used to being free. I haven’t been free since a couple seasons before. Just being able to do what I do and being ok with being the best version of myself.”
On players unlearning habits
Caldwell: “That’s something that multiple of us struggle with. Let me be the bad guy. Never be harder on yourself than I am on you. That’s what I get paid to do. I get paid to coach you. I get paid to make you uncomfortable. I get paid to make you better. So let me take that on, then you just have fun. You just worry about being a good teammate, have fun. If you make a mistake, let’s go get the ball back. The way we play, when they talk about freedom, alright, you turn it over, don’t dwell on it. Go get an offensive rebound, it’s a wash.”
On being a student at UT when all sports are good
Cooper: “It’s great. We know what to expect. You know what to expect when you think of Tennessee. We want to win. We got that grit that’s with us every day. We’ve got a winning program. When you come into a program like that, you got to come in with the mindset to be ready to go. That’s how I look at it and it’s great to be a part of that.”
On what the freshmen look like
Barker: “I’m really proud of them. For them to come in and do the things we do every day. We do hard things. We do a lot of hard things every day. For them to continue to show up consistently and not complain and not say I don’t want to be here and things like that. Just continue to do that. I’m really proud of them. Jaida Civil, who is a freak athlete. You don’t need to know (her name), you’re going to figure out who that is. You’re going to find out who Jaida Civil is. You have Mya and Mia Pauldo, the twins are bringing energy every day. They’re very consistent. Very excited to see Mia, excited see Mya, excited to see Deniya -”
On having Mia and Mya Pauldo, Nya Robertson and Deniya Prawl
Caldwell: “I just call them the ‘-eye-uhs’. Everyone thinks it’s hard for me but I just yell an ‘-eye-uh’ mad and everyone starts playing better.”
On the best place to eat in Knoxville
Barker: “Jim and Nicks.”
Cooper: Chivos. It’s a mexican place.”
