Kim Caldwell is heading into her third season at Tennessee with no illusions about what comes next.
After a strong first year with Lady Vols basketball, Caldwell watched year two unravel late. Tennessee brought in a top portal class and a strong high school group, but the season fell apart in the stretch run, ending with eight straight losses and a Round of 64 exit against NC State in the NCAA Tournament.
Then came the roster reset. Every possible returner entered the transfer portal and landed elsewhere, and after Caldwell moved on from a pair of assistant coaches, she and her staff rebuilt from the ground up. The result is a completely new 15-player roster for her third season.
Caldwell knows the pressure that comes with that kind of turnaround. In an exclusive interview with ESPN’s Andrea Adelson, she was blunt about what another rough year could mean.
“I feel like if we have another year like last year, then yeah, that’s it,” Caldwell said in the interview. “We have to put a better product on the floor.
We have to play hard. We have to look the way I want my team to look.
That is more so what I am concerned about and focused on.”
Adelson also posted that she spent time this week with Tennessee women’s hoops and found Caldwell “introspective and honest,” adding that she had “No excuses. Knows what is on the line. Excited about her revamped team.”
Tennessee didn’t have much time to piece together this roster. The Lady Vols did have a commitment from four-star freshman Gabby Minus, but otherwise the staff had to start almost from scratch. With new assistants Bill Ferrara and Isoken Uzamere in place, the program went to work in the portal.
Ferrara described the approach as straightforward and unfiltered.
“Kids in the portal have either had a bad experience or they’re looking for a better one,” Ferrara said about the portal recruiting. “They had a good one, and they want a better one. You know how valuable it is that I sat in there and watched Kim just tell everybody the truth about every single thing, every single question.
“So yeah, that’s what we did on all the visits. We just told them how it’s going to be said, it’s going to be hard.
We said we’re going to be waking you up at six in the morning on Fridays, and we’re going to be running you on the track. We said that we’re going to be pressing everybody.
And that’s the best way to attract what you want. You want hard-working kids with a chip on their shoulder?
You have to tell them what it’s going to be like. You can’t roll out Lamborghinis and lie to them.
So, it’s been fun for me to watch Kim do that.”
Here’s the Lady Vols’ 2026-27 roster:
Avery Mills, G, Liberty
Naomi White, G, NAU
Harper Peterson, F, Stanford
Zhen Craft, F, Georgia
Rylie Theuerkauf, G, Georgia
Harissoum Coulibaly, G, Auburn
Fatmata Janneh, F, Texas A&M
Kaylene Smikle, G, Maryland
Shaelyn Steele, G, Penn State
Jada Eads, G, Seton Hall
Aaliyah Moore, F, Texas
Kennedy Fauntleroy, G, ECU
Riley Makalusky, F, WVU
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