{"id":613668,"date":"2026-02-20T12:58:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/613668\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T12:58:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:58:22","slug":"everything-lady-vols-basketball-hc-kim-caldwell-said-after-losing-to-texas-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/613668\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything Lady Vols Basketball HC Kim Caldwell Said After Losing to Texas A&M"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>(Photo via @LadyVol_Hoops on X)<\/p>\n

Lady Vols basketball was big favorites in the game against Texas A&M, but didn\u2019t have enough in the tank to survive. Instead, Tennessee fell into a deficit it couldn\u2019t climb out of, losing 82-74.<\/p>\n

After the game, Lady Vols head coach Kim Caldwell met with the media to give her thoughts on the matchup. She was asked about the system, what she wants to see going forward, what went wrong vs. the Aggies and more.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what she said.<\/p>\n

More From RTI:\u00a0Three Quick Takeaways: Lady Vols Basketball Suffer Another Bad Loss<\/a><\/p>\n

Opening statement<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we didn\u2019t have it tonight. We got in too big of a hole to start the game, and then coming out, I think we clawed our way back to start the second, and didn\u2019t really come out of the locker room at halftime. Got ourselves in a hole again, and then once again, ran out of time down the stretch to try to fight our way back.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the reason for defensive breakdowns<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t keep the ball in front of us, is what the biggest part was. We got caught on a lot of scout-specific things. Had a hard time keeping one in front of us, and then once she could get to the middle of the floor, she could go wherever she wanted to go. Again, we talk a lot in this program about two dribble more, keep the ball in front of you, try to get them to pick it up in two bounces, and they go nowhere, and we didn\u2019t do that very well tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

On if the team was dragging this week, low energy<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked at length about defense. Start with defense, start with defense, start our defense. I think that we play our best when we\u2019re getting stops on the defensive end. It fuels our offense, and we get momentum from that, and they went on a 10-0 run. Again, scout-specific things, get back in transition, and get back after the turnover. Keep the ball in front of you. These are the shooters, and so that was disappointing to see. And then again, they had some life to them at times. It just wasn\u2019t consistent enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Texas A&M building an early lead<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to take anything away from them. They shot the ball very well. They played well. They played at a high level. I think we were a step slow to everything. I mean, we were not where we should be, so then we were scrambling, and our closeout to it we were just off. We were behind on every single defensive rotation.\u201d<\/p>\n

On what she\u2019s learned about herself, adjustments she wants to make after this year<\/p>\n

\u201cI think big picture, there\u2019s a ton we\u2019re learning right now. I think when you talk about a career, you talk about how to build a program, and all of those things, you\u2019re learning a lot. You write them down, and you continue to figure out how you want to build this, and what to learn from going forward. And this coach reached out to me the other day, and said, \u2018Your second year is always your hardest year.\u2019 I said, \u2018Well, I\u2019ve never heard that.\u2019 It\u2019d be nice knowing going into your second year.\u201d<\/p>\n

On what she says to people who blame her system for the losses<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I mean, I don\u2019t think we\u2019re doing much of anything. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re doing much of anything, and so I don\u2019t have anything to say about that. I think that all of our errors are, at the end of the day, on me, and I think that\u2019s understood. I think that comes understood with being in this responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the attitude of the team, not being able to finish<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think, again, we went back when we weren\u2019t able to get stops, and hit that big three. It was a dagger for us down the stretch and took the wind out of our sails.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Janiah Barker\u2019s night<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was really efficient for us offensively. I think she was the only player in the first half that had an offensive rebound. She was taking good shots, she was playing at pace, they were doing a good job of finding her, and we need multiple people to step up. I like it when our stat line is a whole lot more balanced, and again, I\u2019m proud of her and her game, but we need consistency throughout the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

On righting the ship defensively with little time before the postseason<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we have limited practice time left. We have to have a day off. We\u2019ll have another one-day prep going into Oklahoma. We\u2019ll do a lot of it with film, we\u2019ll do a lot of it with breakdown. I think there was a point in time in the year where we were pretty solid defensively, and that was kind of what we hung our hat on, was our half-court defense, and we just need to find a way to get back to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Zee Spearman getting back on track in the second half<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s one of the consistencies that we need, and so she\u2019s one of the ones that needs to be a consistent scorer for us, and a consistent defender for us. I think she\u2019s one of our best defenders, if not our best defender, and so we need that out of her going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the press not improving this year<\/p>\n

\u201cI think last year we were very consistent in who we played and how we played them, and our substitution patterns were consistent all year long, and they\u2019re not this year. We don\u2019t have consistent substitution patterns. We are not playing the same rotations. We\u2019re very inconsistent about who can be on the floor, who shows up, who\u2019s what, and then you\u2019ve been inconsistent with injuries, as well. But I think consistency of knowing what we\u2019re going to get out of each player can get better down the stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n

On what she saw from Mia Pauldo while she was out, if she didn\u2019t play much because of restrictions<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, so we didn\u2019t see a lot of her. She did travel with us to Ole Miss, and when you\u2019re in concussion protocol and if it\u2019s that bad, then you\u2019re resting. So she would come in and do her treatment, she would be around, but I think tonight, just looked a little off first game back. That\u2019s a tough ask in a situation where it was not going well for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the challenge of playing Oklahoma<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, they play incredibly fast. They share the ball. We\u2019re going to have to guard the 3-point line, and we\u2019re going to have to guard the post. We haven\u2019t been good at doing either lately. We\u2019ve got to guard in transition, and it\u2019s really going to come down to can we guard them, and we\u2019ll have, again, one day prep, so we\u2019ll have to watch film, get practice here, and then it\u2019s an early game, too, so we won\u2019t even have shootaround time, unless it\u2019s at 6 AM.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the response she\u2019s looking for<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that we need to get back to looking like we looked five days ago. I thought we looked okay when we played Texas. I thought we looked like a Final Four team when we played Texas. That\u2019s the same kids, the same team. It\u2019s five days ago. I don\u2019t know if it actually was five days ago, but it was not very long ago. So let\u2019s put our finger on that, and let\u2019s get back to that. Let\u2019s get back to the version of us that was when we played Missouri. Like, same kids, the version of us when we played Kentucky. Let\u2019s just get back to who we were.\u201d<\/p>\n

On some of the things she\u2019s learned this year<\/p>\n

\u201cI think all of those things are big picture. Those are philosophy and how to build, and I\u2019ll share those when the season is done. Right now, I\u2019m very focused on continuing to try to win this group.\u201d<\/p>\n

On steering the team\u2019s mentality the last three games<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that is exactly what I said. We have to get back to who we were. I don\u2019t have words to make this one feel better right now. This is one we didn\u2019t think we should\u2019ve lost. Again, they played great. I don\u2019t want to take anything away from that. But that we have shown that we can do it, and we have to get back to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On what went wrong in the final 90 seconds<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defense stopped on the back end. I think that after we cut it to two, we had momentum, the crowd got into it, things were feeling better, and then I think they went down on the other end and hit a shot. We maybe missed a rotation on that one, and then they hit a three shortly after, and then we ran out of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

More about:\u00a0\u00a0Kentucky Sports Betting<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Photo via @LadyVol_Hoops on X) Lady Vols basketball was big favorites in the game against Texas A&M, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,32705,23209,32706,32707,8715],"class_list":{"0":"post-613668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-kim-caldwell","10":"tag-lady-vols","11":"tag-lady-vols-basketball","12":"tag-tennessee-lady-vols","13":"tag-texas-am"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116103080847589149","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}