Kim Caldwell spoke with the media for the first time since her April introduction as the Lady Vols head coach.
Knoxville, Tenn. – Running, film study, and more running is how the first four months of the Kim Caldwell era for the Lady Vols have gone.
Caldwell’s uptempo offense and pressure defense require a great deal of conditioning and studying of defensive concepts.
Cardiovascular fitness is seemingly the cornerstone of Caldwell’s teams. Throughout the open period of Thursday’s practice, sprints were implemented early and often.
Maintaining pace whether in transition, on fastbreaks, or constant movement on offense, not losing pace is crucial in achieving the uptempo offense.
With that comes a learning curve for the veterans and newcomers on the team. However, four months in Caldwell believes they’re adjusting well. Acknowledging the complexities of her system takes time to learn and master.
While her overall record as a head coach 217-31 (26-7 in NCAA DI / 191-24 in DII) remains impressive, her record in the early weeks of the season tend to be more rocky as the team figures out how to execute plays.
In November, her record over eight years as a head coach is, 24-13.
The only time she lost more games than she won in that month was in her one season at Marshall where Caldwell’s team went 2-4.
“I think it’s a nice mix of challenging but it also takes us a really long time to learn how to play this way. I would say of my nine years of coaching, our November record is probably our worst record because it takes time. We need some room in our schedule where we can work it out, and we can grow and get things clicking. I think we have a challenging enough schedule but we also have enough schedule where we can figure those things out before we get to SEC play,” said Caldwell.
It’ll take a “very special” player to fit in Caldwell’s system.
The greatest challenge is not becoming comfortable, as Caldwell highlighted in Thursday’s press conference, the moment a standard is met, she raises the bar once more.
Reinforcing she wants practice to always be tougher than games, which continues to challenge the team in ways they haven’t been.
“It was tough, and it’s continued to be tough. They are still working on that, and we condition and run a lot; they know that. We’ve had a lot of great alumni come in and tell them that it’s worth it. I think that that helps,” said Caldwell.
This will also allow Caldwell to rotate 10 or 11 players throughout a game, which is a tall order.
However, in a system that will be more “positionless” than most it grants greater opportunity to go deeper into the bench.
“They are learning a lot. They are learning how to play completely differently,” said Caldwell.
Sarah Puckett and Tess Darby are among the veterans who have impressed Caldwell so far.
“I think Sara Puckett is going to be great at this. I think she’s going to thrive. Talaysia Cooper is really good. I know she didn’t play. I know Kaniya Boyd didn’t play. She’s going to be really good for us. Tess Darby is going to be really good at this because she can fire them away. Jewel Spear is going to be really good at this because she can shoot and drive. There wasn’t anyone that was here that I had a conversation with and said, ‘You’re going to struggle doing this.’ If that conversation happened, they probably wouldn’t be here. Jillian (Hollingshead) looks great. They’re all embracing it,” said Caldwell.