Tennessee athletics director Danny White is optimistic about the Lady Vols basketball program because of coach Kim Caldwell, despite the offseason upheaval.
In his first public comments since the season ended, White praised Caldwell for her ability to reconstruct both her coaching staff and the roster.
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“I’m proud of Kim as a leader,” White told The Sports Animal on April 15. “Coaching is a complex profession. Talented coaches tend to excel early in their career — this is all different coaches in all different sports — in their ability to connect with athletes, know the game, motivate, all of those things. But as you rise in the profession, and in this instance, take over bigger organizations, management and being a CEO is really important, too.
“I admire how Kim, coming off a disappointing Year Two, after a really exciting Year One, evaluated changes that needed to be made in our program and made them pretty decisively and aggressively. I think we’re in a great place now.”
Tennessee lost all eight players who had the potential to start to the transfer portal. Former assistant coach Gabe Lazo resigned and was later hired as coach of UCF, while UT fired assistant Roman Tubner.
UT also granted the release of five-star recruit Oliviyah Edwards.
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All of this happened after the Lady Vols finished 16-14 for their worst season in program history. They went 2-11 in their last 13 games, including a 30-point loss to UConn and a 43-point loss to South Carolina.
Tennessee entered the SEC tournament on a six-game losing streak and lost to Alabama in the second round. The Lady Vols ended the season with a first-round exit in the NCAA tournament.
White wasn’t surprised that there were 15 combined transfers portal entries between both the men’s and women’s basketball programs.
“No, not after the season that we had,” White said. “And knowing that’s not our expectation as a program, and it’s not Kim’s expectation as a coach. There’s a lot of things missing in terms of the way we want to play. It becomes not the best experience, certainly for our coaches and our fans, but also from a player perspective. We’re in this era where it’s free agency after every season, so all parties involved can make decisions that are in their best interest.”
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The Lady Vols have added five players from the transfer portal to pair with four-star high school prospect Gabby Minus. They brought in Avery Mills (Liberty), Naomi White (Northern Arizona), Rylie Theuerkauf (Georgia), Zhen Craft (Georgia) and Harper Peterson (Stanford) as of April 16.
Caldwell also hired former Florida State associate head coach Bill Ferrara to replace Lazo.
“When you have kind of a frustrating season, it didn’t surprise me that there’s that much turnover,” said White.
Wynton Jackson covers high school sports for Knox News. Email: wynton.jackson@knoxnews.com
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee AD Danny White on Lady Vols basketball coach Kim Caldwell leadership
