Kim Caldwell’s Tennessee Volunteers’ season ended Friday night after the NC State Wolfpack defeated them 76-61 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Lady Vols finished 16-14 overall, tying the program record for most losses in a single season (14). It ties the previous mark set by the 2015 team. Moreover, the Lady Vols posted the lowest winning percentage in program history.
After the game, head coach Caldwell addressed the media, where she exposed her weak team struggling to stick to its high-pressure, fast-paced system. Injuries like Janiah Barker missing the NCAA game also hurt their depth. Caldwell said the team tends to “quit” when things go wrong.
“We just had a lot of quit in us tonight and that’s been something that’s been consistent with our team,” Caldwell said. “When we’re not comfortable and things don’t go our way, I have a team that’ll just quit on you, and you can’t do that in big games. You can’t do that any time in the SEC, but you certainly can’t do that at a program like this.”
When asked the several lopsided losses the team has suffer this season, Caldwell added:
“Yeah, that’s a question for them about why they can’t stick together.”
Kim Caldwell Takes Responsibility For Lady Vols’ Inconsistent Season
The Lady Vols have had a pretty inconsistent season marked by several reasons. They lost seven straight games at one point. Meanwhile, at the end of the season, they lost nine of their last 11 games.
It’s not only the players whom Caldwell blamed for the season. She himself took responsibility for the inconsistent rotations she presented throughout the season.
“You can’t play this style of play and put in a plan B, and we put in a plan B,” she 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. I know better than to do that and it was the worst year of my professional career. Our players deserve better than that from me.”
“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,'” Caldwell added. “We never got consistent rotations. That’s the first time in my (career) that we’ve never had players that consistently we know who is going to go in with which group. We just never got there.”
Despite a disappointing season and marking only the third first-round loss in program history, Caldwell’s job is safe as Athletic Director Danny White is not expecting a “quick fix” and has confidence that the head coach can turn around the program.
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