Why Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell says teams will hate playing the Lady Volunteers

Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell isn’t mincing words about how grueling it will be to play her team. She says teams will hate to do it.

The Lady Volunteers are a long way from their championship-winning ways. Unfortunately, that’s seemingly part of the reason former head coach Kellie Harper was relieved of her duties earlier this year, and school leadership brought in Kim Caldwell. Caldwell is admittedly an “out-of-the-box candidate” because while she has a wealth of experience, very little is in Division I basketball — a departure from Tennessee’s track record.

However, she’s a winner. Her 217-31 career record and Division II national title while at Glenville State speak to the results she produces and what she requires of her teams. Why is Caldwell so successful? Per Andrea Adelson of ESPN, Caldwell-coached teams play with an up-tempo pace and a press defense, which is hard to teach, hard for players to learn and hard for opponents to defend. Here’s what she shared about the culture shift happening at Tennessee to play this way:

“A lot of what we do, we need equal or better talent, so we’re going to have to grow it. But I think it is just making teams uncomfortable and making people play the way they don’t want to.”

“We’re not going to try to beat them at their own game. We’re going to try to beat them at a different game. We’re going to try to make them beat us at our game.”

“I want people to know that you’re gonna hate playing us. Simple.”