Women's Fastbreak On SI

Tennessee Fans Fired Up Over Coach's Passionate Show of Loyalty Toward Senior Players

Tennessee Volunteers women's basketball coach Kim Caldwell won over a lot of fans despite her team's second straight loss on January 9.

Grant Young

Tennessee Lady Vols head coach Kim Caldwell yells during a college basketball game at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center in Knoxville, Tenn., on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024.
Tennessee Lady Vols head coach Kim Caldwell yells during a college basketball game at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center in Knoxville, Tenn., on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. / Angelina Alcantar/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The No. 16 ranked Tennessee Volunteers women's basketball team suffered a tough 89-87 loss at home to the No. 6 ranked LSU Tigers on January 9.

This marked Tennessee's second consecutive loss after starting their season with a perfect 13-0 record; which also meant that first-year head coach Kim Caldwell started her tenure as the Tennessee head coach with 13 consecutive victories (all while pregnant with her first child) before two straght defeats.

Therefore, it wasn't a surprise to see that Caldwell was fired up about the defeat after Thursday's game. The reason she was so fired up has Tennessee fans feeling certain that they found the perfect head coach for their program.

When speaking with the media after the game, Caldwell said, "For me personally... I get a little bit offended with, 'You have time to rebuild, you have time to rebuild. These seniors aren't your players.' That offends me. They are my players. They chose to stay, and I chose to coach them," per an X post from WVLT's John Sartori.

"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," Caldwell continued. "I want to win for them. I want to win right now. And so these games that we can't get back, and they can't get back, yes maybe they are establishing something for the future.

"But I want them to be able to have the experience too. I want them to get what they deserve," Caldwell added.

Volunteer fans are loving this take from their first-year coach.

"Am I the only one who loves her? She’s just awesome," one fan wrote.

Another fan wrote, "Every fan, everywhere has got to respect the heck out of the fact that there is NO YEAR ZERO nonsense from Kim Caldwell. And her current players - her future players & recruits are taking notes and want to play even more for a coach like her."

"In case you missed this after the game last night, I still highly recommend buying stock (and tickets) in this team because this is simply how winners operate:" wrote Brain Rice.

Despite the loss, Caldwell won over a whole lot of fans last night.

Published
Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

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