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Lady Vols basketball hosted Vanderbilt for the regular-season finale, but wasn’t able to get over the hump. Instead, despite a strong first half, Tennessee lost 87-77 in the in-state rivalry.
After the game, Lady Vols head coach Kim Caldwell met with the media. She was asked about the SEC Tournament, third quarter issues and more.
Here is everything Caldwell said.
Opening statement
“I appreciated the crowd on senior day. It got loud in there. A great environment for our last home game. That’s a phenomenal team, definitely deserving of their ranking in the country. Can’t have that many lapses against them and come away with a victory, especially in the third quarter.”
On addressing the third quarter woes
“It’s something we’ve been addressing. We’ve been addressing it. We’ve tried to change up who goes back out on the floor to start the third quarter. We’ve addressed it, I don’t know, for a couple games now, maybe longer. And so we just have to maybe trick them into thinking that we’re doing something different other than we go in and we talk about a game plan. They talk about it first. They’ll write it on the board. We’ll talk about what we have to add as coaches. We’ll repeat it as a team, and then we come back out, and it always looks a little different than we want it to.”
On Vanderbilt guard Mikayla Blakes
“She gets loose from you. I think that’s why she’s one of the best players in the country, she never stops moving. She cuts incredibly hard. The second you take a break, she capitalizes on it. And when you go back and look at her film, there’s been a lot of teams that have maybe been able to do it for a quarter or a half. It’s hard for anyone to do it all game long. I thought we did a decent job in the first half, and then she got going. And we talked about it as our game plan. Once she’s going, they’re all going.”
On Jaida Civil
“I just need her to continue to play hard consistently. Go get to the rim. She was getting to the rim pretty well. Needs to be a little bit more consistent around the rim, but she’ll get that. She rebounds really well on the defensive end for us. So if the ball can get it, she pushes pace. She plays at the speed I want us to play.”
On missing shots at the rim
“It was frustrating. I think in the first quarter, I remember a lot of them that were pretty clean looks, and then third quarter, again, kind of had the same problem.”
On balancing learning from the losing streak, turning the page to a clean slate in the SEC Tournament
“For us, I think we’ll watch the third quarter live. We normally clip it, and edit it, and break it down in a variety of ways, and maybe they just need to see it in real time. That solution will help. You just gotta continue to try, and then with the pretty quick turnaround, we have to be off tomorrow, and then have a day of prep, and we’ll see how things shake out with the rest of the games today about times, and shoot around times, and practice times for Greenville.”
On what gives her confidence the team can win in the SEC Tournament
“We need a win. You need a win. You need a win in the SEC tournament, get some momentum, and take it game by game there.”
On why adjustments haven’t taken in the third quarter
“If I had that answer, we wouldn’t be having this problem. I clearly, we clearly don’t have it.”
On if her team can’t handle other teams’ halftime adjustments
“Maybe to an extent, but a lot of it is our ball flows in the first half. We’re moving the ball. I think the majority of our offense was in the first five seconds of the shot clock, and then it was late in shot clock, and then we try to score without sharing the ball very much. That’s what it feels like to me, we’re kind of going back to what we were doing at the beginning of the year, scoring off of no passes. And we wanted 18 assists, we had nine, so just sharing the ball. Being a little more patient, I think is a better word on the offensive end.”
On her impression of the SEC two years in
“It’s harder this year than it was last year. And I think that that is something that we need to do a better job of explaining that you have to show up every single night. Because even if you don’t perform well against the ranked opponents, and we had two that we should have got, then you’re significantly better going into the SEC tournament, right? And so we let two that on paper shouldn’t get away from us, they got away from us, and it’s a league where it’s the best players in the country, the best league in the country. I think it’s stronger than it’s ever been, and you have chunks in your schedule where it’s okay, and you have chunks in your schedule where it’s absolutely brutal, and everyone has to go through that.”
On Zee Spearman’s Senior Day
“She really has grown. I’m very proud of her, and it was good to see her mom. And really excited for her, and they got to take the floor with her. ‘She made it. She made it. She made it.’ And so they’re very proud of her. We all are.”
On her thoughts about the SEC Tournament being in Grenville
“That’s all I know. And so I don’t know what it’s like anywhere else. I think it was a well-ran tournament and a community that likes us, and hopefully we can stay a little longer this year.”
On the morale of the team
“I think, again, you focus on your next game. It’s go time. March is when you want to be playing your best basketball. Regardless of what our record has been, I do think that we are showing some improvement in some areas. We need to continue to put it together. We need to continue to take those lapses away. Work on that. I think I have a team full of individuals that’ll be ready to go in March.”
On not fouling as much
“We did a good job. Again, I really liked the pace of the first half because it wasn’t stopping. We weren’t just shooting foul shot after foul shot. And so we did a good job of guarding. And then in the second half, we weren’t really close enough to them with them.”
On Talaysia Cooper
“I think what felt the most different for me was she was playing with real confidence on the offensive end. And then two is up to pressuring. I mean, the Talaysia Cooper that we know of up and getting steals and really just getting some easy ones with her defensive presence, that was good to see.”
On the importance of the Georgia and Kentucky wins earlier this year
“They were really big. The Kentucky game without JB was really big here. And then in hindsight, that Georgia win at Georgia is a really big one because they’re tough to beat. They’re coming on strong down the stretch in a tough place to play.”
Keep learning and working together to be better. Never give up. Don’t let yesterday dictate tomorrow. Be proud of who you see when you look in the mirror. Love the Lady Vols.
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