Tennessee women’s basketball head coach Kim Caldwell spoke to the media after a historic 43-point loss to South Carolina.

Here’s everything the Lady Volunteers’ coach had to say.

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Opening Statement

“A lot of quit in us tonight, and that’s been something consistent with our team, is we’re not comfortable and things don’t go our way. And I have a team that just quit on you, and you can’t do that in big games. You can’t do that anywhere, anytime in the SEC, but you certainly can’t do that at a program like this.”

After a loss like this, what was your message, and what do you kind of say when your next game—[Questioneer is cut off]

“Win your next game. Win your next game. It’s embarrassing. Win your next game.”

Why do you think when things are going badly for this team, or going as badly as they have been, to the margin of defeat?

“Yeah, that’s a question for them about why they can’t stick together.”

What were some of the halftime adjustments that you wanted your team to make?

“Yeah, we wanted to run some offense. They went to a zone, and we looked a little bit scared versus the zone. We didn’t run anything. We didn’t put pressure on the rim. We wouldn’t even get the ball inside the paint. So we talked about running some sets that would get us inside the paint, and so we could play inside out, or we could go high-low, and we didn’t do that.“

Can you talk about facing South Carolina’s zone?

“Yeah, they did a really good job of covering up the rim for us. I think we were doing a decent job at the beginning, when they were in man of playing inside-out, we were able to attack it and get to the rim. And then when we just had to stand out there and launch threes, it got ugly pretty quick, and we didn’t have the discipline to just run any offense.”

How concerning is it about not being able to deal with the two-three zone, especially when you’re going through sets you want them to run, trying to break it, but end up shooting what you guys did from three?

“Yeah, I think that they hit a point where we were just launching them. It hit a point where it was just, everyone was just going to shoot it. And that’s not offense. That’s not pretty, it’s why the score looked the way that it looked.

“Historically, we’ve been pretty good against the zone. That was another thing we talked about at halftime. We’ve seen zone, our zone execution up to this point has been good. It’s been efficient. I think one thing that they do is they cover up so much ground. They limit you from getting those offensive rebounds against it, so if you miss your first shot, they’re going the other way.”

You mentioned this team having a lot of quit today. When you’re in February, how do you fix a team that has quit?

“They have to fix it. They have to decide they want to fix it.”

What’s the reaction when the game is starting to snowball?

“I don’t necessarily know that they’re sitting there defeated. I don’t know that. I do know we don’t have the leadership we need, player-wise, and we’ve talked about it for a couple of weeks. It can come from anyone anywhere, but we need, do need somebody that is respected and does things the right way, to step up and lead this team from a player standpoint.”

You have players that have made deep tournament runs, whether here or on other teams, um, what do you kind of say to them and challenge them to step up?

“I think they just have to. I’ve had individual meetings. We’ve met with them. I’ve said it publicly that we need leadership. We need people that want to win. I think consistency is a big problem with this team right now. So it’s hard to lead as a player when you’re not consistent as a player. When you don’t do what you’re supposed to be doing every single day, then you don’t have the respect from your teammates. We do have a few, we have a few young ones that I think they could step up and lead because they do things the right way.”

Defending inside the paint, anything you really feel like they could have done to be a little bit more effective?

“Oh yeah. I mean, we had a scout. Guard the paint, guard at the rim, be in your gaps. Towards the end, we were fine by they hit a three, they hit a three, but stopped letting them go at the rim. And it was like we were surprised, and they caught the ball in the paint.”

I don’t think Mia Pauldo has been held scoreless all season, let alone not made a shot at all. She looked a little shaken up after getting hit early. Did you feel like she was just maybe kind of off after that for the rest of the game? What were you seeing?

“Yeah, I don’t think she made bad plays. I think she still played hard. Just think her shot didn’t fall tonight. And we are better when she’s better.”

Talaysia Cooper had a strong performance in her return to Colonial Life Arena. What does that say about her competitiveness tonight?

“I think she could have played better quite frankly. I don’t want to be disrespectful to your question, but we have bigger problems, and we can try to fix the team.”