GREENSBORO, NC – Zoe Brooks was unbothered by the full-court pressure Lady Vols basketball threw at her all game.
It was far too easy for Brooks and the NC State guards to beat Tennessee up the sideline, making the press mostly ineffective in the No. 8 Lady Vols’ 80-77 loss to the No. 9 Wolfpack on Nov. 4 at First Horizon Coliseum.
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Tennessee committed more turnovers than it forced. The Lady Vols’ 16 points off 10 NC State turnovers weren’t enough to make up for their own 11 turnovers among other mistakes.
“We let them go full court, like Zoe Brooks broke our press just by herself,” said Tennessee’s Janiah Barker, who scored 15 points. “We didn’t rotate how we were supposed to. We didn’t do what we practiced, if I’m being honest. That wasn’t what we practiced and it showed, and it got our ass kicked.”
The Lady Vols didn’t execute a lot of what they practiced in their first game of the season. They didn’t get back on defense and match up well enough. They didn’t run their offense or share the ball consistently. They didn’t box out well enough. And they fouled far too much, which Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell was concerned about costing them going into the game.
But this is why Caldwell scheduled a top-10 matchup to open the season, to see where her team was with five freshmen and three transfers. One of Tennessee’s main lineups was entirely made up of newcomers.
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Caldwell believes her team can get 15 points better if they buckle down and fix the “eye-opening things we need to control.”
“Now we have a beautiful teaching moment. We got film in a one-possession game,” Caldwell said. “So as a coach, it sucks, it hurts. We don’t want to sit up here after a loss … but I do believe that we’ll learn more from it because we did lose, they’ll take things a little bit more seriously.”
Tennessee’s shot selection was terrible at times, and it took way too many quick 3-pointers before looking to get the ball in the paint. UT shot 27.3% on 33 on 3-point attempts, and it only shot 39% from the field.
Caldwell said their shooting percentages are “really hard for me to look at” after how much time they spent talking about offensive efficiency, taking good shots and getting paint touches.
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“We just got under the lights, and we just took shots that had no chance of going in, especially in the fourth quarter – maybe those ones just hurt the most,” Caldwell said. “But it seemed like once we saw a lead, we kind of just wanted to make the home run play as opposed to the plays that were working for us.”
Barker believes they need to slow down offensively. They can’t get sped up and rush shots. Tennessee won’t find success taking shots just because they’re open. To Barker, it comes down to “being obsessed with just sharing the ball.”
“This is our first game, maybe we were nervous, it’s a big game,” Barker said. “But I think just sharing the ball and getting the ball to the players that need to shoot the ball.”
The Lady Vols only logged 14 assists on 30 made field goals, led by seven from Talaysia Cooper. She scored a game-high 23 points with 11 rebounds and three steals.
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Caldwell was most pleased with Cooper’s seven assists and only one turnover, although she wants Cooper to get more offensive rebounds.
“I know that (assists are) important to her. I know she hates turning the ball over, I know it’s important for her to get people open,” Caldwell said. “We’ve really been working on the right reads with her and setting her players up for success, and I think tonight was a good start.”
Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee women’s athletics reporter for Knox News. Email: cora.hall@knoxnews.com; X: @corahalll; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social. Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks:knoxnews.com/subscribe
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Kim Caldwell reacts to Lady Vols’ season-opening loss to NC State
