KNOXVILLE – Kellie Harper watched Tuesday’s practice for the Tennessee women’s basketball team intently.
During the period of practice available to the media, the former Lady Volunteers point guard and new head coach at times stood by while watching assistants Jon Harper and Jennifer Sullivan instruct. She stepped in at one point during a transition defense drill and coached freshman forward Emily Saunders on what to do in getting back on defense.
Harper follows another former Lady Vols point guard, Holly Warlick, who was fired in March after seven seasons as head coach. Four starters off last season’s 19-13 team are gone, with junior Rennia Davis the lone returner.
Six players on the roster didn’t play for Tennessee last season: four true freshmen, junior college transfer Jaiden McCoy and sixth-year senior forward Lou Brown, who sat out due to a torn ACL after playing at Washington State.
Despite the new-look roster, Harper noted Tuesday that the most important thing was getting the players returning to “buy in,” adding that “thus far ours have.”
University of Tennessee athletic director Phillip Fulmer passes a jersey to Kellie Harper during a press conference announcing her as the new head coach of the Lady Vols, in the Ray and Lucy Hand Studio on University of Tennessee’s campus Wednesday, April 10, 2019 in Knoxville, Tenn. (Caitie McMekin/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP)“I give them a lot of credit,” Harper said. “They’ve been receptive to what we’re asking them to do. We’re painting a picture, explaining it to them and showing them the best we can what we want it to look like and how it needs to look. I think them being receptive to that helped us be able to come in and implement new things.”
Although Tuesday was the first official practice for the 2019-20 season, the Lady Vols had a chance to start building team chemistry during a three-game European trip this summer.
“I would say it’s been different this offseason because we have a new staff and it’s a new experience, so it’s kind of like freshman year all over again in a sense,” said sophomore guard Jazmine Massengill, who’s from Chattanooga and prepped at Hamilton Heights. “You have to get used to a new coach and a different playing style.”
Harper has been careful not to overwhelm the team with too much up front. She said she has a curriculum that she “always puts down on paper” to help guide her on how she wants to implement her style, but she noted that how quickly she implements that style is contingent on how quickly the players are picking it up.
“I have a vision of what I want things to look like, but I do it for the month,” she said. “I know what I want to get in by the first exhibition date and how I’m going to go about doing that. It’s never 100% accurate, but it gives me something to work with and gives me a plan. Then we go out and see how we progress. If we are progressing quickly, I can add more, but if they’re progressing slow, we can take some things off the table.”
The Lady Vols have four weeks before an exhibition against Carson-Newman on Oct. 29. The regular season begins a week later at East Tennessee State, with the home opener on Nov. 7 against Central Arkansas.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.