Lady Vols basketball is quickly approaching the third season under the direction of head coach Kim Caldwell. Ahead of the season, Caldwell fielded questions from reporters at local media day on Thursday.

Here’s what she said.

Opening statement

“Thank you, guys. This is a great crowd. Thank you for coming to see our team today and meet our team. I hope you love them as much as we do. 

“On a different note, I wanted to give an opening statement today, because on Monday, my good friend Ike Morris passed away. And he was Glenville State’s biggest donor. He influenced my life in so many ways. He influenced so many lives in so many ways. His family has taken care of me since I was a freshman in college. And Ike made sure that we were competitive. When you’re a Division II coach, you don’t always get to get new uniforms every year. Sometimes you wear them for three years in a row, and they have armpit stains. And he made sure that we got new uniforms every year. He made sure we were celebrated when we won. He made sure that we could stay competitive with our scholarships. Division II, not every team gets the same amount of scholarships. He made sure we could compete. And that mattered to him. And his funeral is today, and I can’t be there. But I wanted to say I love his family. I am praying for you. I miss everybody in the town of Glenville. And without Ike Morris and his family, I would not be standing where I am today.”

On how much Ike Morris has influenced her

“He made sure that I could be successful. And that was the most important thing to him. He loved winners. I remember being very young, and I wanted to hire my dad. And we had to go ask and do some nepotism things to see if I could hire my dad as an assistant coach. And he said, look at your dad’s win percentage. I love a winner. We’ll do what it takes to make sure he gets here. And he just made sure we could win. When we were given five and a half scholarships and needed to have 25 players on our roster, he said, no, we will help you. When we had golf fundraisers every summer, he would sponsor a hole. And he treats every sport that way. And there’s a lot of coaches in different sports across the country that wouldn’t be where they are without him.”

On how she would sum up April to October

“April to October, it seems like it’s been 10 years. But it’s been growth. It’s been needed growth. It’s been great. It’s maybe looked uncomfortable at times. But it’s been necessary for our program to take the steps that we need.”

On the team meshing together

“They have meshed together incredibly well. We’ve talked about it a lot. They are as close as they can be. They live very close together. They hang out on and off the floor. And I think that helps when they are on the floor, to be able to problem-solve together, to be able to take feedback from each other, to be able to lock in and lead each other when they need to.”

On the players getting along together

“I haven’t seen a team in quite some time, probably my Glenville days, because small town makes you closer, that has hung out this way and has been this close off the floor. And after practice yesterday, we got done late because we had photo video day. And after practice, it was about 9 o’clock, they all went to the volleyball game and made a student section. And I think that’s what makes this team special.”

On collaborating with new assistant coaches Isoken Uzamere and Bill Ferrara

“They’ve been tremendously helpful on the floor and off the floor, structure-wise, learning from two very successful coaches that have been at different programs. I’ve seen how they do things and what we can take from them and add to what we do. And they’re great people. They’re great to be around. Our players love them. And they’ve helped set our culture the way we want to.”

On why she has confidence this team can endure tough times

“They have a lot of don’t blink in them. They have a lot of keep going. They want to get it right. And when you have players that want to get it right, you don’t have maybe the dramatic highs and lows of the other team goes on a run or we go on a run. So just making sure that you stay consistent, you stay trusted to the process and doing things brick by brick, piece by piece. And that’s really who they’ve been since the day that they got here. When we threw as much hard at them as we could, they just endured it and continued to do it.”

On how Jada Eads and Kennedy Fauntleroy have played point guard

“I would hate to be a point guard at any program, let alone here, where you have to be the first one up in the press. You have to set the tempo for us on defense. You have to push pace on offense. You have to put people in the right spots. I think you guys all know by now, I’m not going to be overly controlling when calling the offense. I’m going to give our point guards freedom to do that. And so they have to know the offense from multiple positions. They have to be able to command the room. They have to be able to take heat from a lot of different people, a lot of different coaches and their players when they make a mistake. And you have to be very resilient. And I really am very impressed with Kennedy and Jada so far.”

On having the point guards cut up film

“That’s something new. And it’s because we have so many new players. It’s just helping expedite them, being comfortable leading, putting people in the right spots. We have never done that before. But the point guard, for me, has always been one of the most important positions.”

On what made her decided to have the point guards do that

“Coach Jenna is their position coach. And she thought that that would be really good. She was a point guard. And she thought that would be really good for them to be able to do that. And she’s the one that helped them lead through their first film session. And I think that that helps. I don’t know if that was something she had done as a player or not. But that was her idea.”

On bringing in former Lady Vols to talk to the team

“We want to continue to do it. We want to do it as much as we can. It helps educate our players. And it helps connect the future and the past. And that’s part of what we have to do. And that’s what our job here is, is to continue to try to make that legacy proud and relevant and everything to that degree. And so anytime there is a former Lady Vol within a local distance, we try to grab them.”

On how the team has embraced the tradition of Lady Vols basketball

“I think they love it. And we have done book reports and a lot of different learning sessions about former Lady Vols and making sure that, again, they understand the weight of what they’re doing. We got to hear from Tamika, Chamique and Holly about what it means to put on the Lady Vol uniform yesterday or two days ago before video day, because it matters. You don’t put this uniform on lightly.”

On the impact of Nya Robertson coming back as a student assistant

“She’s done a good job. She is able to have the ball in her hands and teach people to be in the right spots and know you need to be on the help side. And I think sometimes, I know that I was this way, sometimes it’s easier to see things on the floor than it is standing off the floor. And because she is so heavily involved with our practice team, she’s able to see a lot and give real time, like real time, no scoot over, no force me this way. No, make sure that you close out this way, because she’s out there.”

On the injury status of Fatmata Janneh

“She’s practicing.”

On the team finishing at the rim

“Not great. So we have a hard time finishing late in games, late in practices. That’s a little bit of a reoccurring theme for us. I noticed it yesterday, is when we hit that wall and we were a little bit fatigued, the first thing that I noticed to go is finishing. So we just have to continue to work on that, continue to get our legs under us over this last week, week and a half.”

On the team’s perimeter defense

“Also, we need some work. Our half-court defense in general, I like where we’re at in our press. I like where our offense is at. Our half-court defense, making sure that we play team defense, because our one-on-one defense is not going to get it done. We do really have to play defense as a unit, and making sure that we are in help, we are in gaps. We are, again, one player, we are all focused on the ball scorers, and we’re all shifting that way. And you’ll see in practice, those of you guys are staying, that we’re going to spend a lot of time working on defense.”

On freshman Gabby Minus’ growth

“Gabby was really good when she got here. And I think what impresses me about her so much is how much she wants to get it right. And for a freshman to come in and be uncomfortable, and be tired, and to be young, and to stop a practice and say, I don’t understand, or to stop a practice and say, can I go again, or can I guard this position, she wants to do it right. She’ll take criticism. She’ll take coaching. She’ll take feedback. She plays incredibly hard. And for those of you guys that were at our scrimmage on Saturday, she made a lot of mistakes. She cost us a significant amount of points, but she made up for it because she just played so hard. She went and got offensive rebound after offensive rebound, putbacks, which is the life and blood. That is our soul. That’s what we want to do. And so she will fix those mistakes, no doubt. Every freshman in the country right now is making mistakes. Who she is as a person, her love for this program, and this school, again, I think she should be a name that everybody knows.”

On how grateful this team is to be here, what fans will like about the team

“They should like that. They should like that our players love Tennessee. They love to go to the football games. They love to go to the volleyball games. They support other teams. They are appreciative of everything they get. And we’re not giving them as much as we’ve given teams in the past. And they are thankful to go to Smokey’s (dining hall), which is an amazing resource for them. And they love being a Lady Vol. They are very much like-minded with me of I appreciate being here every single day. I never thought I could be here, and I think that our team emulates that a little bit. And I hope that the fan base gets to know them from your guys’ questions today and gets to see them next week play as hard as you’ve seen any of my teams play.”

On the potential of a slow start this year with a new roster, keeping morale up if so

“Yeah, we try to get, that’s some of the things we’re trying to get ahead of. We’ve tried to scrimmage as much as possible, even in practice against our practice players, getting as many game-like simulations as we possibly can and getting a taste of failure to see who we are then and getting a taste of success and to see who we are then. And you have some things, you’re right, we can’t emulate. Sometimes we’re gonna have to switch our rotations and who plays with who and who comes in for who and getting your 10 players set. And that does take time throughout November. You just have to make sure you have your foundation set with the type of players that you have and where their heads are at, and I think we have that.”

On establishing culture with the team getting along quickly

“They make it fun. They make it fun to be here. They make it fun to coach them. When we walk into the gym, we’re genuinely excited to be here. The gym is a place that people want to be. I don’t think we have any players that walk in and dread being in the gym. I don’t think we have anyone on our staff that walks in and dreads seeing a player. It’s a happy place and that’s not a normal thing. Basketball season is long. And so I’m thankful to them for that and I think it has to do with who they are and their buy-in and their wanting to be here.”

On having tryouts for male practice players

“They’ve been great. They play very hard. They do a good job. They listen. Brandon (Miller), who is our new director of video, has done a really good job of coaching them through practice, finding players. We could still use some tall players if there’s any out there.”

On managing expectations for herself in November

“The closer we get to November, the more nervous and tight I get. But I think if I focus on things I can control and areas where we have to get better and the areas I know we will struggle, which usually early are your fouls, your shot selection, your turnovers, all of your rebounding, your box outs and your offensive rebound, those areas, if you know that that is coming, you try to get ahead of it. And that’s what I have to focus on instead of being tight and nervous and what’s coming forward.”

On what success looks like for her to start the season

“We wanna learn as much as we can, and we wanna win as many games as we can.”

On the impact of Nya Robertson coming back as a student assistant 

“She’s back for us as a student assistant, and she’s doing a great job. She’s on the board. She’s making sure our players really understand what to be. And as a coach, she is really paying attention to the players that are right there in her area, and they’re in the right spots because she knows it. She knows what we’ve done. She wants to be a coach. I think she’s going to be a very good coach. And this is a really good opportunity for her to continue to see both sides of it.”

On the energy of her assistant coaches

“We got to make sure we keep it. The scrimmage was going really well. So as a coaching staff, we have to make sure that we keep that when things aren’t going very well. But it’s been a seamless blend of our staff because of when we got here, what we were going through. We were trying to sign 15 players in about three weeks. And so we hit the ground running and that got us to be very close very quickly. And I think that we stayed that way.”

On having this roster after the quick recruiting period

“I’m very thankful for everyone that chose to be here and that picked us when the outside noise was saying run in the opposite direction. And I think that speaks a lot to the players that we have. They believed in themselves. They believed in us as coaches. They knew what they wanted. They are very strong women that were not affected by anything else other than they knew they wanted to be a Lady Vol. They knew they wanted to play this style of play.”

On how special Kaylene Smikle is

“She’s a great player. She finds a way to make things happen. And she’s more than just her offense. She’s very good on the defensive end of flying around, getting to the ball, getting a deflection, making sure that we get the ball back. And she is tremendous at 50-50 balls. There’s a ball going out of bounds where one player will stop and look because they think the play is dead. She’s gonna beat you to it, and she’s gonna save it and continue to play. She has a winner mentality. She has a no-quit mentality. And I didn’t necessarily know that watching her film. So it’s been a great surprise seeing her in practice compete the way she competes. She wants to be coached. She wants to work hard. She wants to be the best player she can possibly be.”