KNOXVILLE — A 13-0 start to Kim Caldwell’s first season as the University of Tennessee’s women’s basketball coach, an unbeaten run that included a road win in the Southeastern Conference opener a week ago at Texas A&M, has given way to back-to-back narrow losses at home to league opponents.
Caldwell is clearly frustrated with those types of results, and she seems just as tired of trying to find new ways to answer questions about what it will take to get the four-quarter performances she’s itching for from the Lady Volunteers.
But more than anything, in her postgame news conference for 16th-ranked Tennessee’s 89-87 loss to No. 6 LSU on Thursday night — four days after an 87-86 home loss to Oklahoma, which dropped one spot to ninth in Monday’s Associated Press Top 25 poll — she seemed concerned that another chance for the team’s seniors to savor an SEC victory had slipped away.
“It’s a really hard pill to swallow,” Caldwell said. “We’re three points away from being a top-five team in the country. And I don’t think that that’s a positive, I think that that’s a negative. We don’t want moral victories, we don’t want people telling us, ‘Oh, you fought so hard, you’re so close, you’re so close.’
“It’s our job to get it done. It’s our job to put four quarters together, it’s our job to go get the offensive rebounds. And so as a coach, those three points are on me. We have to find ways to fix them, to get them back … I think this team has an opportunity to be really special. It’s unfortunate for the seniors that we’re letting it slip by.”
LSU remained unbeaten through its first 18 games of the 2024-25 season, including three against SEC competition, with the Tigers lifted to victory this time by Kailyn Gilbert’s layup with less than a second on the game clock.
Tennessee’s Zee Spearman then had a good look at the basket but missed a short jumper that would have sent the game to overtime.
Aneesah Morrow had 23 points and 21 rebounds to lead the Tigers. Gilbert finished with 22 points, Flau’Jae Johnson added 20 and Mikaylah Williams scored 16.
Tennessee’s Jewel Spear scored 25 points and Talaysia Cooper added 24 with six rebounds, five assists, two steals and a block for the Lady Vols, who trailed by 18 in the second quarter. Samara Spencer and Ruby Whitehorn scored 10 each.
Morrow had a double-double by halftime. Her 19 points and 10 rebounds over the first two quarters — along with 11 points from Johnson — helped LSU take a 46-39 lead into the locker room at intermission.
The Tigers were up 26-17 after the first quarter and built up their lead over the first three-plus minutes in the second before the Lady Vols rallied to cut their deficit to single digits. LSU’s lead was 67-62 entering the fourth quarter, but the Lady Vols twice went ahead by two in the final four minutes and drew even three times in the last three minutes.
That included Spear’s 3 on a fast break after Cooper’s steal, a shot that made it 87-all with 32 seconds to play, but when Johnson missed a jumper close on LSU’s ensuing possession, Morrow got the offensive rebound. The Tigers then got the opportunity for what turned out to be Gilbert’s winner.
Asked if the Lady Vols outscoring the Tigers in each of the final three quarters was a step in the right direction, Caldwell went the other way.
“No, it’s extremely frustrating that we don’t play for four quarters,” she said. “It’s extremely frustrating that I come in here and I have the same conversation with you guys about four quarters, we talk to them about four quarters, that we spend a lot of time just having blunders instead of just showing up and doing what we know how to do.”
LSU finished with a 46-38 edge in rebounds over Tennessee, which was outrebounded 42-33 by Oklahoma.
“Our players have to actually want to rebound,” Caldwell said. “… We’ve told them over and over and over, when you get into SEC play, you’re going to have to rebound, and I think they take it seriously now but it’s cost us two games, which is, again, really unfortunate for the seniors, because they don’t get these games back.”
Spear, who returned for a fifth college season and a second year at Tennessee this winter after transferring from Wake Forest in 2023, said she remains proud of the Lady Vols’ refusal to lay down even when trailing by a lot, but she also knows it’s past time they stay out of such deep holes.
“We have to stop being behind for so much,” she said.
Even though Caldwell — hired last March after one season at Marshall and a successful seven-year run at her alma mater, Glenville State, that included an NCAA Division II national championship — is working to build a program of her design in Knoxville, this first Tennessee team is important to her.
And that includes the veteran players who won’t be around for the seasons to come.
“I get a little bit offended with, ‘You have time to rebuild, you have time to rebuild, these seniors aren’t your players,'” Caldwell said. “That offends me. They are my players. They chose to stay, and I chose to coach them, and so I don’t want to wait, I don’t want people to say, ‘When you get your players in here.’
“These are my players. I want to win for them, and I want to win right now.”
Compiled by Marty Kirkland. Contact him at mkirkland@timesfreepress.com.