Michael Allen 
Lady Vols
Meta Description: The Kim Caldwell era begins with the Lady Vol basketball program. Will this be the return of Lady Vol hoops as we know it, or will it be more of the same from the recent years?
The 2024-2025 campaign starts with a fresh slate for the Lady Vols basketball team as Kellie Harper is out as head coach and Kim Caldwell is in. Kim Caldwell had a very successful season at Marshall in the ’23-24 season as her team finished 26-7 overall and 17-1 in the conference. Marshall won the regular season and conference championship which gave them an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament. All of this happened during her first season as a Division 1 coach after a very successful stint as the head coach at Division 2 Glenville State. The question remains: can her fast-paced style of offense be successful at the major Division 1 level?
The Lady Vols lose a lot of experience and talent from last year’s squad as first round WNBA draft pick Rickea Jackson, Tamari Key, and Jasmine Powell are all gone, and Karoline Striplin decided to enter the transfer portal at season’s end. This leads to another question: who do the Lady Vols turn to for this year’s season?
The fact that only one player entered the transfer portal after the coaching change is huge for Coach Caldwell in her first season. After all, this is a team that was a couple of plays away from beating the eventual national champion twice last season. The Lady Vols bring back key players in lightning fast guards in Destinee Wells and Jewel Spear, a lockdown defender in Kaiya Wynn, fantastic shooters in Tess Darby and Sara Puckett, a key role player in Avery Strickland, and a force in the middle with Jillian Hollingshead.
Coach Caldwell also hit the transfer portal hard as she brings in Alyssa Latham (Syracuse), Lazaria Spearman (Miami), Samara Spencer (Arkansas), Ruby Whitehorn (Clemson), and Rapuluchi Ayodele (Pitt) to add depth to the team.
This team looks to get up and down the court quickly against teams by scoring quick on offense, and pressuring teams on defense to force turnovers. Coach Caldwell has done a great job bringing in players that fit this style of offense to combine with a core that is very athletic and able to play this style already. The tallest player on the team this year is Hollingshead at 6’5” so it will be a much smaller team than what Tennessee teams of the past have looked like.
Kim Caldwell has been successful everywhere she’s been so far, but will that success remain in a conference as tough as the SEC? It’s a style that isn’t quite replicated so far which could lead teams to struggle to stop it, however the SEC is a league that prides itself on physicality, defense, and rebounding. This team’s lack of size could lead to them being dominated physically if a team is able to slow down the pace against them, or if Tennessee’s shots aren’t falling, it could lead to disaster.
There is a lot of optimism around the Lady Vols program this season and for good reasons, but will the high standards that this program has be too much for Coach Caldwell? Only time will tell, but Coach Caldwell has been successful everywhere she has been, so why wouldn’t she have success here at Tennessee? Danny White seems to believe that she will have success in Knoxville, and with his track record of hiring/retaining good coaches, I believe that the right decision was made with this hiring as well.
There will be growing pains as this new system gets established, but between the experience Tennessee brings back from last year’s squad, and the talent that has been brought in from the transfer portal, this team should be successful. At the very least, the fast-paced style of play should be exciting to watch this season.
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