KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Kim Caldwell drove to work in silence day after day last season, the sleepless nights piling up.
Things started going bad in late January with Tennessee's 15-point home loss to unranked Mississippi State. Then came a 30-point defeat against UConn. A week later, a 43-point rout to South Carolina. "We had a lot of quit in us tonight," the Lady Vols coach said after the game, her frustration growing.
Caldwell always thought her coaching superpower was getting her teams to play hard and play together. None of that was happening. She had to find a way to fix it, even if it meant calling her team out publicly.
After another home loss to an unranked team in mid-February, Caldwell prayed for answers. She felt like a failure -- torn between what made her a championship-winning coach at Division II Glenville State and what she thought she should be doing as the head coach at Tennessee.
A year earlier, in her first season in Knoxville, Caldwell had guided the Lady Vols to the Sweet 16, but it still felt like failure to her because it came with too many losses and no championship. She needed to get to the Final Four to feel like she had done something worthwhile. So Caldwell changed nearly everything within the program because maybe she needed to do things differently here.
She had a far larger staff than she ever had, so she delegated responsibilities because that is what she thought she should do. She shifted her recruiting philosophies, because at Tennessee you should go after every All-American, even if they are not a perfect fit for your preferred tempo-press system.
Everything looked great on paper. Tennessee had one of the most talented rosters in the country. Offseason practices went well. The season started well, too. But when the losses hit, the foundation she thought they had built started to crumble, and Caldwell could no longer reach her players.
The Lady Vols finished the season with 14 losses and a first-round exit in the NCAA tournament. The entire roster -- every single player -- entered the transfer portal. No one wanted to wear the beloved orange uniform that every basketball-playing girl in America once wanted to wear.
It was rock bottom for one of the most storied programs in the sport. Critics swarmed, questioning Caldwell and athletic director Danny White for sticking with her.
White never considered making a change, coming back to one main point in each of their conversations: "Be who you are."
Caldwell, however, knew everything had to change. So she went back to her roots to reset the program, going back to what worked for her as a basketball maverick. A surprise phone call from former NBA coach Jeff Van Gundy cemented her plan.
How it all plays out might end up determining the future of Tennessee basketball.
"If you make the wrong decisions, like she did, then you can swing big and miss. But we're going to continue to swing big," White said. "I'm not trying to have Tennessee women's basketball be a little bit better than where we were for the last decade. We're trying to get it back to where Coach [Pat] Summit had it."
"THINGS WILL GET worse before they get better," Caldwell told her returning staff when last season ended. She planned to have hard conversations with her players in their end-of-year meetings as she returned to the blueprint that worked for her at Glenville State, Marshall and Year 1 with the Lady Vols.
That started with taking back control of her trademark tempo-press, after Caldwell handed off responsibilities for their half-court offense, half-court defense and rebounding last season.
"My mind is play fast, fast, fast, fast, fast," she said. "A big part of our problem was our half-court offense was slow, our half-court defense was slow, and then the part that I was coaching was fast. It wasn't super obvious until the end [that] this isn't the right blend of how we want to play."
Tennessee averaged 76.4 points and scored fewer than 70 points 10 times, both career lows for Caldwell. In Year 1, Tennessee ranked No. 3 in the country in scoring offense, averaging 86.6 points. In her lone season at Marshall, her team averaged 85.3 points; in six seasons at Glenville State, her teams averaged 98 points.
"... The world has seen me fail in a very public spotlight. I didn't handle it the right way a lot of the time. But the only way to learn is to get through it." Kim Caldwell
As Caldwell laid out her standards and expectations for the next season, she anticipated she would lose the majority of her team. She had no qualms with the roster turnover, but knew the slow drip of news each time a player left could scare off prospective transfers.
"We had a bunch of people be like, 'No, I'm good,'" assistant Jenna Burdette said.
The players they targeted were different from those they went after the previous year. Tennessee had signed three McDonald's All-Americans in the Class of 2025. But they were not perfect fits for her system, which requires not only an ability to play fast, hit 3s, rebound and defend, but also to share minutes in Caldwell's frequent rotations.
This time around, Caldwell and her staff did a far more extensive background check to look for players who would fit her particular system better. For every prospective player on their list, they made multiple calls to their former coaches, both AAU and college, and their parents.
Would she be OK coming off the bench? Does she handle adversity well? And lastly, Would you recruit her again?
If the answer to that final question was no, Tennessee crossed the player off the list.
Most importantly, Caldwell needed to strike a balance between elite five-star talent and players who complement each other on the floor. Getting proven 3-point shooters was an absolute must.
It helped from the outset that four-star prospect Gabby Minus stayed committed to Tennessee. But she was the only sure thing the staff had headed into a three-week portal blitz last April.
"Obviously, portal visits are very quick, but we tried to make sure they were all spending one-on-one time with Coach Kim," Burdette said. "The narrative about her is she doesn't care about her players, she doesn't want to be around them, and that's just not who she is. The ones we got here, they ran into the fire, and they trusted the vision she had."
Caldwell spoke bluntly to potential transfers, taking accountability for what happened but also explaining that nothing would be easy if they came to play for her.
"You tell them how hard it's going to be, and then you tell them how hard it's going to be again, and if they want it, and they believe in themselves, and they love basketball, then it's a good fit," Caldwell said.
Forward Fatmata Janneh came on her visit looking for a fresh start after beginning her career at St. Peter's and then transferring to Texas A&M. She related to Caldwell because their journeys felt similar -- overlooked at the outset, making their names at smaller schools before jumping to the SEC.
"She just seemed so hungry, and that's exactly what I was," Janneh said. "Everything that she was saying aligned with everything that I wanted. She was recruiting people that wanted the same thing. Being in an environment where everybody wants the same thing, we're bound to win."
Tennessee signed 13 portal players -- nine from the Power 4 (five from the SEC) -- placing a heavy emphasis on production and veteran experience. Maryland transfer Kaylene Smikle, No. 14 in ESPN's women's college basketball transfer rankings last April, headlines the group.
Though she sat out most of last season with a knee injury, she emerged as the Lady Vols' best player through the offseason and scored 31 points and hit 5 of 6 3-pointers in the season opener. She's leading the Lady Vols in scoring with 19.7 points per game through their first three games this season.
Smikle said she loves the system Caldwell runs because she thrives in transition and enjoys playing aggressively.
"Shooting's never been a problem for me, and I'm not afraid of hard work," she said. "Everybody is bought in. When you have people who have put themselves aside for the betterment of the team, any system is going to work."
But the roster is also lacking big post players, with nobody taller than 6-foot-3. That has put a bigger emphasis on playing team defense inside because it will be difficult to defend one-on-one in the post.
"There is a difference between when a coach is just getting random players versus when a coach has intention behind who she's getting," said Texas transfer Aaliyah Moore (12.0 PPG), one of three players averaging double-figure scoring. "And I felt like Coach Kim had intention and had a reason for every single person that she picked, like we were part of a puzzle."
CALDWELL SUSPECTED THE call was a prank. "I didn't know we had an office phone," she said with a laugh.
But the call was no joke. Van Gundy called Tennessee's basketball office last April, looking for Caldwell. They'd never met, but Van Gundy was intrigued with Caldwell's style of play and wanted to help. He had seen the news conference when Caldwell said her team quit in the loss to South Carolina.
"It is easy to lose coaching confidence, especially when you look at her record. All she's ever done is win," Van Gundy, now an assistant with the Los Angeles Clippers, told ESPN. "I told her this: Last year could have been the best thing that ever happened to her coaching career.
"This profession is about people who are humble or about to be humbled. Everybody's good. You go to that league and that level, and all the coaches are tremendous coaches, and so it's hard, and it's supposed to be hard."
The unexpected phone call helped Caldwell realize she needed to do more than change her roster.
"Your team will only be as connected as your staff," Van Gundy told her.
"It was like cold water over me, because you don't think about your staff. You just think about your players," Caldwell said. "Then you think, 'Our staff isn't connected, either.' I have to learn how to get them to run through a wall for me before I can ask these 15 players."
Caldwell had already made staff changes, hiring Georgia assistant Isoken Uzamere and Florida State assistant Bill Ferrara to join returning coaches Burdette, Angel Rizor and Lexie Barrier.
"Last year could have been the best thing that ever happened to her coaching career. This profession is about people who are humble or about to be humbled." Jeff Van Gundy, on what advice he gave Kim Caldwell
Caldwell flew to Las Vegas this summer to spend time with Van Gundy during summer league. He told her it takes "basketball courage" to run her system because "the critics are just waiting for something to fail."
"This is what she truly knows and believes in, and you have to coach to what you believe in," Van Gundy said. "Systems don't win, players do, but players also have to have a great belief in what you're asking them to do, and she believes that this system of play gives them the best chance to win."
Before the season started, Caldwell sent practice clips for Van Gundy to watch. Based on what he saw, he believes Tennessee has a "connected and committed team," and noted the way Smikle, Minus (12.7 PPG, 8.3 RPG) and Janneh (team-high 10.7 RPG) stood out. So far, all three have been key contributors.
"They're fun to watch," Van Gundy said. "They play hard. They share the ball, and you can tell they're enjoying being in the gym with each other and with the coaching staff. That's a great situation. If it stays that way through the ups and downs of the season and how hard that league is, you can actually enjoy coaching."
Caldwell also brought in a communication specialist to help break down the characteristics and personalities of every staff member and player, to help them gain a better understanding of the best way they can respond to each other and coach more effectively.
"This year is big for all of us," Rizor said. "We're not going to have a life. We're going to be grinding, and our players are grinding even harder. That's one thing I do love about this group. No matter what time of the day in the gym, someone's always working out, someone's always shooting."
Everybody knows how big this year is, not just for themselves, but for the program. As Burdette said, "I don't think we did it justice last year."
Caldwell knows that more than anyone.
"It is a big job, and there is a steep learning curve, and the world has seen me fail in a very public spotlight. I didn't handle it the right way a lot of the time," Caldwell said. "But the only way to learn is to get through it."
Caldwell acknowledged if she has another year like last year, then she might not get another chance to make it right. The early results have been encouraging, though Tennessee has not been tested much in its 3-0 start with wins over Duquesne, Coppin State and New Haven. Caldwell knows the real test will come when adversity hits for the first time.
But that also serves as motivation, while also shifting her own perspective about what it means to win. She tells a story about a Hall of Fame coach who said she needed to "learn how to lose," after she got her first Division I job at Marshall in 2023 because it would happen more on this level than at Glenville State.
She scoffed, thinking to herself, "If I have to learn how to lose, I will go do something else. I hate losing." But as she reflected on what it means to "learn how to lose," she finally understood. Losing is not total failure, the way she viewed it. Losses can be used as building blocks to great success.
"If I sweep last year under the rug and say it's an outlier, and this was just bad circumstances, and I blame it on other people, I will never get better from it," she said. "The point of it had to have been to learn how to navigate staffing, and the way you recruit, and how you talk to players, and how you run your program. If I make an excuse for it and don't keep that wound, then it was for nothing."
White still believes in Caldwell and her preferred style of play, saying he wants to see the Lady Vols "get back on track to what I saw in Year 1."
"Failure sometimes can be a powerful thing. It's brutal when you're going through it. Strong leaders like Kim are going to look inward and hold themselves accountable and fight to make sure it doesn't happen again."