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How Kim Caldwell explained terrible season for Lady Vols, ‘worst year’ as a coach

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ANN ARBOR, MI – Kim Caldwell fell into her own trap searching for answers to Lady Vols basketball’s problems.

The second-year Tennessee coach did the very thing she tells any coach not to do if they want to play a style like hers, if they want to press like she does.

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Caldwell came up with a Plan B.

“You can’t play this style of play and put it in a Plan B, and we put it in a Plan B,” Caldwell said. “I think when you do that, you lose your identity. You lose your buy-in, you lose your staff a little bit, and there’s fault from the top, and that’s from me. I did that in the middle of the season, and I know better than to do that, and it was the worst year of my professional career.”

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Prep for March Madness with this year’s Lady Vols basketball highlights

Tennessee guard Ruby Whitehorn (2) celebrates with Tennessee guard Kaiya Wynn (5) after Columbus State receives a foul during a NCAA exhibition game between the Tennessee Lady Vols and Columbus State Cougars at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center in Knoxville, Tennessee on Oct. 29, 2025.

It wasn’t just Caldwell’s worst season – it was Tennessee’s worst season in program history.

No. 10 seed Tennessee finished 16-14 after falling to No. 7 seed NC State 76-61 in the first round of the Women’s NCAA Tournament on March 20 at the Crisler Center. The .552 winning percentage is the lowest the storied program has ever recorded, and the 16 wins tied the fewest of the NCAA era.

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The Lady Vols went winless in March for the first time ever, ending the season on an eight-game losing streak, which is the longest of the NCAA era.

“There have been very few times that I have hit failure, and I have never hit failure to this extreme,” Caldwell said. “It’s a tough place to do it publicly, and I didn’t like who I was at certain times.”

Caldwell’s Plan B involved abandoned the press at times, tightening the rotation and walking the ball up the floor before running sets, but things got worse. The Lady Vols lost 11 of their last 13 games.

That affected the buy-in of the team, Caldwell said, because the players knew there was another option if they didn’t get a couple stops, and they could stay on the floor longer. There was no “clear leadership” from Caldwell of what they were going to do and why they were doing to do it, she said, and they never got consistent rotations for the first time in her career.

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“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,” Caldwell said. “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.”

Talaysia Cooper, the team’s leading scorer in both of Caldwell’s seasons, pointed to effort as the biggest change that has to be made this offseason.

“This is an effort-based program,” Cooper said. “If you don’t want to work hard, if you don’t want to press, don’t think about coming here because this is what she does and she’s not changing it.”

It will have to wait for next season for Caldwell and the Lady Vols.

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“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 are lessons in this, and he’s building,” Caldwell said. “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.”

Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee women’s athletics reporter for Knox News. Email: cora.hall@knoxnews.com; X: @corahalll; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social. Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks: subscribe.knoxnews.com/offers

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Kim Caldwell’s ‘worst year’ as coach was a terrible season for Lady Vols

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