It was a great exhibition of things to come from Kim Caldwell’s system
It was a great showing on Wednesday night in Thompson-Boling Arena for Kim Caldwell’s debut as the new coach of the famed Tennessee Lady Volunteers. Her style, described as unapologetic and unique, was on full display on both sides of the ball.
It wasn’t a particularly efficient night shooting from three for the Vols, but 10-34 from deep will get the job done at the pace in which they played. Conditioning was a priority all offseason from Caldwell to her team to prepare them for how she wants them to play, and it shined all night on the defensive end as the Lady Vols stymied Samford’s offense in all facets. Tennessee forced 37 Samford turnovers which led to plenty of fast break opportunities at the rim and extreme efficiency on shots inside the arc for the Vols.
Things were expectedly not flawless in game one, far from it, in fact, as Tennessee turned the ball over 20 times themselves. A lot of it stemmed from simply just trying to go too fast at times within the flow of the game, and bad passes and poor dribbling popped up. That being said, when the defense is forcing a turnover on 43% of Samford’s possessions, it gets covered up pretty quickly, but it should be understood that those numbers are not reliable dictation on how consistently that can happen, not yet at least, so they will have to clean things up offensively to find similar success against better teams.
South Carolina transfer Talaysia Cooper was the star of the night for Tennessee, stuffing the stat sheet by scoring 19 points on 8-of-13 shooting with 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 7 steals, and 2 blocks. Zee Spearman added 25 efficient points off the bench, Clemson transfer Ruby Whitehorn added an even 10 points and 6 rebounds, and Arkansas transfer Samara Spencer (12 points, 5 assists) flashed her lightning quick speed, beating Samford guards off the dribble all night long for easy buckets or assists at the rim.
Returning senior Jewel Spear also had a great night for the Vols, adding 18 points on 6-of-14 shooting and 4 steals as her, Cooper, and Spencer dominated the backcourt on both ends all night long.
The LadyVols will host UT Martin on Thursday in what’s set to be the second of a run of eight straight home games to start the season. In fact, they won’t play a true road game until December 18 at Memphis in their ninth game of the season. A lot of home cooking will give Kim Caldwell ample time to introduce her new, very exciting brand of basketball to the Volunteer faithful, and I look forward to covering it all season long here.