Kim Caldwell’s fast start surpassing other distinguished Tennessee coaches | Adams

Tennessee’s troubled sports past is well behind it. And there’s nothing mysterious about the turnaround.

UT has hired better coaches. That’s how simple the newfound success has been.

Rick Barnes took over a mediocre program after the 2014-15 basketball season. The Vols went 31-35 in his first two seasons, then 57-15 the two seasons after that. They have become one of the SEC’s most consistent programs.

Tennessee’s baseball revival under coach Tony Vitello has been even more dramatic. He qualified the Vols for the NCAA tournament in just his second season (2019). That was merely a warmup for a program that now resides at the top of the sport after winning the 2024 national championship

Josh Heupel didn’t need much time to right the football wrongs of the Jeremy Pruitt era. After UT went 3-7 in Pruitt’s last season, it won seven games in Heupel’s first season and went 11-2 a year later in 2022.

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Not as much heavy lifting was required of Kim Caldwell when she replaced Kellie Harper as the Lady Vols basketball coach after the 2023-24 season. The program was far removed from the glory days of the Pat Summitt but even in decline never fell short of the NCAA tournament.

That doesn’t detract from what Caldwell has achieved. She has won at a higher level in her first season than Tennessee’s other currently successful coaches. The Lady Vols (19-6) will go for their 20th victory Thursday when they take on Alabama at Food City Center

They began the Caldwell era with 12 consecutive victories, admittedly against a soft nonconference schedule. But they didn’t pad their record solely at the expense of pushovers. Their fifth victory came against Florida State, which later moved into the top 25, and they followed that up with a victory over then-No. 17 Iowa.

The highlight of Caldwell’s first season has been an upset of then-No. 5 Connecticut. That wasn’t an aberration, though. UT’s six losses have been by a total of just 20 points, and five of those losses have been against nationally ranked teams.

Tennessee’s early success under Caldwell has been magnified by its style of play. There has been nothing conventional about the five-player substitution rotation, the full-court pressure, and unwavering reliance on 3-point shooting.

The team Harper left behind wasn’t built for this. But the way UT’s returning players have adjusted and adapted is a credit to them as well as their coaching staff. You can’t make such a quick transition unless you buy what a new coaching staff is selling.

These Lady Vols bought in long before they played a game. They conditioned themselves mentally and physically to the pace that Caldwell’s brand of basketball requires.

Her salesmanship also was reflected in how she attracted transfers and recruited the nation’s No. 2-ranked class for 2025.

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I wasn’t sure how the most prominent high school prospects or proven transfers would relate to Caldwell’s system. I expected the full-court, full-speed approach would be an attraction. But how would star players respond to the unorthodox substitution patterns that reduce playing time?

This team isn’t without talented players, and those players seem to be thriving in UT’s 10-player attack. That’s a good sign of what’s to come for the Lady Vols – in March and in future seasons.