‘They have had some conversations’ – Insider shares the latest on Kim Caldwell following the Lady Vols’ 7th straight loss
It’s been a rough season for Kim Caldwell and the Lady Vols.
The Lady Vols were eliminated from the SEC Tournament on Thursday night via a 76-64 loss to Alabama.
Tennessee should be a bubble team at 16-13, but the current feeling is that the Lady Vols will safely make the NCAA Tournament.
That’s important considering the Lady Vols have never missed the NCAA Tournament.
For now, Lady Vols head coach Kim Caldwell’s job appears safe after a public show of support earlier this week from Tennessee athletic director Danny White.
Vols insider shares the latest on Kim Caldwell’s status at Tennessee
VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs joined 104.5 The Zone’s Ramon and Will on Friday and shared the latest on Caldwell’s status at Tennessee.
“Listen, you do not want to make news this time of year on anything other than basketball, and Tennessee has made too much news,” said Hubbs. “I mean, when your lead story last night is the fact that Talaysia Cooper didn’t play the last 16 (minutes of the game), and then she was the first one who left the locker room — and she left a long time before her teammates left the locker room with a staff member and just kind of drifted off into the bus by herself — those aren’t the storylines that you’re looking for. This is a team struggling.
“We know Danny White is staunchly in Kim Caldwell’s corner, based on comments he made on The Sports Animal in Knoxville this week. So that’s not the deal. I think the question mark right now is, what’s the plan? What’s the plan moving forward, what’s your identity going to be? What’s your roster going to look like? I mean, you’re losing some seniors now. You wonder what Talaysia Cooper’s future looks like right now. Where are all the freshmen with everything right now? Even though this roster’s had its challenges from a personality, continuity, relationships, and culture [standpoint], it’s really hard to sit here going into year three and say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to go get nine or 10 players out of the portal.’ That’s not what you want to do.”
“I think you have to sit down, and they should have already had some sit down meetings with her,” continued Hubbs. “They have had some conversations, but you have to sit down quickly here during this break (before the NCAA Tournament), in my opinion, and you gotta lay out a plan. What’s the plan? What’s the plan for roster development and roster management? What’s the plan for your recruiting? What’s your staff plan? What is your plan with your culture? What is your style (of play) plan? Why are you here at this point in year two? Yes, the February schedule was brutal. It was really hard. But the reality is, teams are averaging 50 percent from the field against them over basically the month of February. They’re giving up 80 plus points a game on average. They’ve got offensive areas they need to fix. They’ve got to learn to sit down and guard. They don’t guard well enough defensively. So what is the plan if you’re Danny White when you’re looking at everything? Because that’s the question he’s getting from donors. He’s getting tagged in all the Twitter stuff. What is the plan? What does that look like? I think that’s the biggest question mark.”
If Tennessee misses the tournament, maybe White changes his mind and moves on from Caldwell. But that’s not the expectation at this time.
Caldwell will likely get one chance to right the ship. And if things don’t go well in year three, it could mean another coaching search on Rocky Top. And it’ll be the most important coaching search for White since he hired Josh Heupel during his first month on the job back in 2021.