(Photo via @LadyVol_Hoops on X)

Lady Vols basketball opened the season with a top-10 clash against NC State in Greensboro. It came down to the wire, but ultimately, Tennessee fell 80-77.

After the game, Caldwell was asked about the technical foul on Janiah Barker, defensive concerns, rebounding, Talaysia Cooper’s game and more.

Here’s what she said.

More From RTI: Kim Caldwell Reveals Explanation of Confusing Technical Foul on Lady Vols vs. NC State

Opening statement

“We scheduled this game to see where we were. We wanted to see where we were early, so we had time to fix it. I think that’s exactly what we got out of it. We have a lot of things we can fix, we can get a lot better. And we know where we’re at. That’s a very good basketball team. That team is going to be playing deep in March, and we want to be, too. If we buckle down and fix the things we need to, there are some really eye-opening things we need to control, then we’ll get 15 points better.”

On guarding NC State’s Khamil Pierre

“I don’t think we guarded her at all. She’s a really good transition player. I think she’s one of the best players in the country and she hit some really tough shots where we did a good job defensively. And then she had some that were wide open. But I mean, right down there towards the stretch, she hit some that we were in position, we had high hands and it was her night. But again, she probably has averages of 12, 15 rebounds on us. We can’t seem to find her on a box out and if we do get a stop, she’ll go get it and put it back in.”

On the last play of the game

“We were trying to get the ball into Mia’s hands and she had the reads and she was open. But it wasn’t the exact – it was the first option, not the second option, and all of those things are just growing pains that we’re going to have to get through and basketball IQ. Like sometimes the read sometimes trumps the call.”

On what the officials said about Janiah Barker’s technical foul

“They said she was taunting.”

On the foul disparity favoring NC State

“We knew fouls was gonna be a problem. We talked about it, we talked about it, we talked about it. I think I’ve said it publicly, the fouls were going to cost us and they absolutely did. And I think they had 32 points from their second chance points and their made foul shots combined. And you got to try to get some of those points back.”

On where the rebounding is at

“I was not pleased with any of it. You know, they have a 6’6″ center, but it’s SEC play, you’re going to have to find a way to go get it. So, we’re gonna show a lot of those clips of us just not crashing. A lot of times, we left Zee down there by herself and I thought that she did a really good job protecting the rim for us to snatch those rebounds. When she needs help, she needs to do her assignment and then somebody else needs to go grab it. Offensively, I thought we kicked it in late to go get the offensive rebounds, but we need to do it consistently.”

On how to get practice to translate to games

“I think it takes time, I mean, now we have a beautiful teaching moment. We got film in a one-possession game. So as a coach, it sucks, it hurts. You know, we don’t want to sit up here after a loss, we’d much rather be going home after a win. But I do believe that we’ll learn more from it because we did lose, they’ll take things a little bit more seriously. They’ll see themselves in the film and try to make change.”

On playing a big out-of-conference game

“I think it’s good. I think it’s good for the game. I think it’s good to put something good and product on TV early in the year. Everyone’s really excited that basketball is here, and they want good games to watch. And again, it was more so about us picking the best team that would play us and making it as hard as possible for eight new players. And again, just to kind of set the bar of, alright, this is where we need to get to be, because again, that team is going to play for a very long time. They’re very well coached, they’re talented. And we got to – if we play them again in five months, we have to look like a different team.”

On having veterans mentor newcomers

“It’s invaluable to have leadership. I always want player-led teams. Our freshmen did a good job in their debut. I’m sure they were nervous, I’m sure it was a big stage for them, a little bit different than being in our exhibition. And they’re going to learn a lot from this, and they will all be different by the end of the season.”

On getting to the paint more

“I think we need to share the ball. To kind of echo what Janiah said is sometimes we were just taking really bad shots. I mean, our percentage is really hard for me to look at because we’ve spent so much time talking about offensive efficiency and taking good shots and paint touches and sharing the basketball, and one more and so many assists. And we spent so much time watching film on that and breaking that down for them, and then we just got under the lights and we just took shots that had no chance of going in. Especially in the fourth quarter, maybe those ones just hurt the most, but it seemed like once we saw a lead, we kind of just wanted to make the home run play as opposed to the plays that were working for us.”

On NC State preventing turnovers

“I think they did a really good job of spacing us out. We failed to cut the sideline off and play around. At the end of the day, unless the stat sheet is wrong, we had 16 points off of our turnovers. I think that could be higher, but that’s why we do what we do. We’re scoring off of them. So again, if that’s 20, we win. And then, so just a few more opportunities to go. The back line of our press is not where it needs to be. We knew that coming in. We knew that our back line gets stuck and we didn’t want to rotate up. We talked about it, we talked about it. And again, the lights turn on and we revert.”

On how Talaysia Cooper played

“I liked that she had seven assists and one turnover. The edge, right? You can look at the points, the rebounds are good. She could have gotten more offensive rebounds, she probably should have boxed out a little bit better. But for her to have seven assists is a really big. I know that that is important to her. I know she hates turning the ball over, I know it’s important for her to get people open. We’ve really been working on the right reads with her and setting her players up for success, and I think tonight was a good start.”