Kim Caldwell didn’t use her last press conference before SEC play begins to inspire confidence about Lady Vols basketball.
In fact, the second-year Tennessee coach was incredibly blunt about where her team is.
“I don’t think we’re ready for conference play,” Caldwell said Dec. 31.
Caldwell added later it was more her take on the Lady Vols. They could “practice for two years” and the second-year Lady Vols coach wouldn’t believe they were prepared for what’s next.
But Caldwell wasn’t exactly spewing optimism about where the the No. 22 Lady Vols (8-3) are at before they host Florida (12-3) at Food City Center on Jan. 1 (2 p.m. ET, SEC Network+).
It’s the end of December and Tennessee is running “childlike drills” in practice to emphasize sharing the ball, Caldwell said. The first time a player touches it, they can’t shoot it. They couldn’t score, and they had to create a shot for someone else. They have to run the offense before attempting a shot of their own.
“It was alarmingly hard for them to understand that and grasp that and do that,” Caldwell said. “Hopefully that’s opened their eyes of, every time you guys catch the ball, the first thing you try to do is shoot or create your own shot as opposed to playing within the offense.”
Caldwell has seen progress in practice from it. The Lady Vols are creating space for teammates, talking and working together better, she said. Caldwell believes her team has become more self-aware of when they’re being bad teammates, which are the lapses she sees in games.
“I think you always deal with it,” Caldwell said on coaching players out of being bad teammates. “You just never deal with it this late in the game.”
The progress Caldwell has seen still has to translate to a game, which Tennessee has struggled to do all season.
She also doesn’t think players have worked through adversity well in games with the exception of Stanford.
“If you can’t make it through practice without melting down, then you’re never going make it through a game, ever,” Caldwell said. “And just really cleaning those behaviors up across the board.”
Florida isn’t going to be an easy win. Both teams are athletic, want to play fast and get to the rim. And the Gators are led by sophomore Liv McGill, who’s one of the most talented guards in the nation.
McGill is averaging 24.4 points, 6.2 assists, 5.5 rebounds and 3.7 steals while shooting 43.3% from the field. She is a bit turnover prone, averaging 5.2, so that could be advantageous if Tennessee can apply enough defensive pressure as a unit.
But if the game turns into a track meet, Caldwell isn’t optimistic given the Lady Vols’ struggle to score and defend in transition.
“Normally, that’s what we would want,” Caldwell said. “So if we can do those things the way teams of mine in the past have done it, then I think we always want it to be a track meet. We always want to go. We always think that we can win that way. But we have to take a big step, because the games that have been track meets, we’ve gotten whooped.”
Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee women’s athletics reporter for Knox News. Email: [email protected]; X: @corahalll; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social. Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks:knoxnews.com/subscribe
