Lady Vols basketball went on the road for its third game of the season and snuck out with a 72-61 win over UT Martin. Afterward, Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell met with the media to give her thoughts on what transpired.
She was asked about the game honoring Pat Summitt, shot selection, the play of freshman Jaida Civil, positive takeaways and more.
Here’s what she said.
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Opening statement
“I was very impressed with the crowd. I thought that that was an amazing environment on the road for us. To be able to show up and see the stands filled 90 minutes before the game, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like that. I’m sad that we didn’t put a better product on the floor for them. Again, I think it was a great day. Again, shoutout to our fanbase, it’s the best in the country and they continue to prove that year after year.”
On playing in the Pat Summitt Heritage Classic
“I think it’s really important. Pat obviously has her hands in everything orange. Everything that involved our program and our university, and quite frankly, the entire state. You can see that when you come here. You can see that when you travel anywhere. To be able to do it back here on a floor named after her where she really got her start, I think that was a tribute that needed to be paid. You don’t see that a lot in this sport. Again, it was a game I’ll never forget just the way people showed up to watch the game.”
On getting out to a slow start
“We just have to – to piggyback off of what Nya (Robertson) said – they just have to do it. We play an effort-based system. If you go out there and don’t give effort, you’re going to look silly. That’s what happened for the first two quarters. You can’t do this if you’re not going to play hard. It’s really all dedicated to playing hard, flying around, playing together and we don’t have that right now.”
On if they did a better job with effort in the second half
“I do (think so). I think there was some moments where we had two or three girls on the floor for a loose ball. There were at least two or three possessions where we got multiple offensive rebounds and ended up scoring. We played the way we needed to play in the second half. It still wasn’t great. I think there was a lot of walking around on defense, way too many turnovers on our end, not seeing the right gaps, not communicating with each other.”
On Jaida Civil’s offensive game
“We need her to slow down a little bit. She’s turned the ball over a hair too much. But they’re all in the stakes of going too fast and I think you can work with that. She’s a big part of our team and a huge part of our team tonight.”
On going against an undersized UT Martin team
“We just had to get out there. When you play smaller teams, you have to prepare for them to shoot more threes because it’s more difficult for them to score inside. But they did a really good job. They’re patient, they’re disciplined, they run their offense, they were able to get us in the air and then go score, they were able to get us to foul them at the rim. I didn’t really see them have much difficulty scoring anywhere.”
On if shot selection was better
“I do feel like we did a better job tonight, especially in the second half with our threes. I still think our offense is not anywhere close to where it needs to be. It’s almost nonexistent. We were trying to get paint touches. I do think if I got back and watch the film, maybe that’s where the turnovers were coming, is maybe we were trying to get too deep. I don’t think we jacked as many bad ones as we have.”
On positive takeaways from the game
“We had some players that got on the floor and played hard. The players that finished the game for us were the ones that were playing hard and I think we can show that on the film. And sometimes a negative is a positive. If you come in here and you blow this team out and you don’t get anything from the film, anything from the tape, something will sneak up on you down the road. That’s why we’re playing a hard schedule. That’s why we’re here on the road in our third game. We’re trying to find out who we are early so we don’t have to find it out late. We’re still finding that out. Anytime you can find that out in November, it’s significantly better than January.”
On the amount of Tennessee fans at the game
“I learned that last year that we have Tennessee fans any and everywhere. We’ll go other places, not even in the state, and it’ll feel like a home team for us. You can’t really explain that to people until they see it.”
