Everything Kim Caldwell said recapping second season at Tennessee
· Yahoo Sports
The 2025-26 women's basketball season concluded for Tennessee (16-14, 8-8 SEC) on Friday in the NCAA Tournament first round.
The Lady Vols earned a No. 10 seed and were defeated by No. 7 seed North Carolina State (21-10), 76-61, at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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"Not the game we wanted, really not the season we wanted, but doesn't really help us to get into that right now," second-year Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell said after Friday's season-ending loss. "Trying to enjoy our seniors for the last little bit that we have them and nothing we can really say to help this loss."
Everything Caldwell said after the Tennessee-North Carolina State game is listed below.
What her takeaways from the season are and if she could make adjustments ahead of next season
"It's a long list. I don't think it helps to get into that list publicly today. I think personally, the most important thing is making sure that you and the people around you keep your character when your prayer doesn't really match God's plan and I think I didn't do a great job of that personally today, and then Xs, Os, there's a list, but today's not the day to get into that."
What stands out to you about the season and why things never quite came together?
“Yeah, I tried to get at that last time I was up here, but you can't play this style of play and put in a plan B, and we put in a plan B. I think when you do that, you lose your identity. You lose your buy-in, you lose your staff a little bit. There's falter from the top. That's from me and I did that in the middle of the season. I know better than to do that and it was the worst year of my professional career. Our players deserved better than that from me and you learn from that going forward. You build with that, exactly like Coop (Talaysia Cooper) said. You build with that, people around you that know what we're doing and are all in.”
What was the plan B?
"The plan B was when we stopped pressing. We stopped running, jumping, we keep players on the floor for a long time. We walk the ball before we run sets, and then we do that in games sometimes after the first two minutes, sometimes we do it in the third quarter. That's why our third quarters look the way - we had it, right? We had another option. They knew we had another option. They knew if they didn't get a couple stops here and there that we would go to that. They could be on the floor longer and that's just not the way it works. There was never any clear leadership on my part of, hey, this is exactly what we're going to do, this is why we're going to do it. We never got consistent rotations. That's the first time in my year that we've never had players that consistently we know who is going to go in with which group. We just never got there.”
What challenges did not having Janiah Barker in the lineup today, how did that impact your game plan?
“Yeah, that hurt in the zone. I think she's really good in the zone for us, really good at the high post. She can play multiple spots. She rebounds really well, so that was tough.”
Do you feel like it was a roster construction thing why it never clicked or when did you realize you were not going to get the consistency you wanted?
“I can't put it on roster construction. I got to put it on me, right? I have always been able to recruit players and stack talent and get them to run through a wall for me and get them to play hard and I wasn't able to do that. One thing I can put my finger on is that I bailed on what we want to do first and then how can I blame anyone else from doing it? You cannot do that, and I know that. Any time I have talked to coaches that want to play this way and want to press, that's the first thing I say. If you're going to put a plan B in, don't do it. You can't do it. I fell into my own trap. Once you're in it you can't get out of it.”
You had 21 offensive rebounds today which was your second most of the year, but only 17 second-chance points
“Yeah, we didn't play very well on offense. The ball didn't go in really any type of way. I was proud of the effort. I was proud of the effort about offensive glass. I thought they were going in and crashing hard. We, obviously, missed a bunch that allowed opportunities for more but, again, the effort to go get them even when someone took a shot we didn't like, they were getting in there.”
In this era with the NCAA transfer portal, how important is retention right now and trying to keep things together going into next season?
“Yeah, I think that this world is kind of crazy of we'll meet when we get back and we'll figure out who wants to stay, what we're going to do, and I think the portal, we have a little while before it opens to get there, but it's just going to continue to be crazier and crazier every year.”
Outside of the not letting yourself go to a plan B, what did you learn about yourself as a coach this season?
"I think that there have been, personally, there have been very few times that I have hit failure and I have never hit failure to this extreme. It's a tough place to do it, publicly, and I didn't like who I was at certain times. I think that God sometimes pulls you out of the storm and sometimes he sits with you through the storm. That's what he did and you shift your prayer.
“I know you're not supposed to pray for winning and all of those things, but you just pray for peace in your program and for God to be there with you and there's lessons in this and he's building. I don't think there's any way in the world I'm here without it, being because of God, because I don't necessarily have that journey and that path, so learn the lessons we're supposed to learn and try to build it the right way, but keep your character along the way and know who you are.”
Do you foresee staff changes, and how has the staff been as a group you can lean on through this year?
“Yeah, the staff is good. It was a rough year all around.
"I think all of that stems from me and I've built a staff around me where a majority of them have come from me, so when they have learned from you, and I start to question me, then it's a little bit hard there because that's all we know."
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This article originally appeared on Vols Wire: Everything Kim Caldwell said detailing second season with Lady Vols