It's time for a change

...and you know this how? Basketball is a tournament sport. Remember Cuonzo Martin's last UT men's team wound up as a 'First Four' tournament seed (#65-#68) and they were one play away from beating Michigan to earn an Elite Eight berth.

problem is, they are not and may never compete for championships.
 
Others may not agree, but I have confidence in our coaching staff, Coach Kellie and our players. We can still do this! We just cannot afford to continue losing games. I don’t care if we have 5 point wins, we have the talent, skills, and fan base to support our team. It’s going to come down to the players will and determination to go out and do whatever it takes to win the game. Let’s get back on track this week!


go Lady Vols!
 
Here's some inconvenient facts about some of the NegaVols favorite coach replacements...

Kim Mulkey just lost to a Mississippi State team we beat on their home court for their 3rd conference loss. They lost to Auburn on the road after we beat them as well. How good a coach is she if she can't win consistently with unlimited NIL and the best team money can buy?

Wes Moore's NC State team last year finished 8th in the ACC and lost in the NCAA first round to Princeton.

Jeff Walz lost his star Senior point guard to LSU....(and also lost to MTSU by 18 points last year)

Dawn Staley had a losing record against Holly Warlick until she signed A'ja Wilson.

In other words, there are no such thing as a 'guaranteed' winner.

Quit holding our coach to standards that most coaches can't reach anyway. Most of you all need to quit this 'replace the coach' BS. There's still a lot of basketball to play.
 
Here's some inconvenient facts about some of the NegaVols favorite coach replacements...

Kim Mulkey just lost to a Mississippi State team we beat on their home court for their 3rd conference loss. They lost to Auburn on the road after we beat them as well. How good a coach is she if she can't win consistently with unlimited NIL and the best team money can buy?

Wes Moore's NC State team last year finished 8th in the ACC and lost in the NCAA first round to Princeton.

Jeff Walz lost his star Senior point guard to LSU....(and also lost to MTSU by 18 points last year)

Dawn Staley had a losing record against Holly Warlick until she signed A'ja Wilson.

In other words, there are no such thing as a 'guaranteed' winner.

Quit holding our coach to standards that most coaches can't reach anyway. Most of you all need to quit this 'replace the coach' BS. There's still a lot of basketball to play.
Well said Earl. Unfortunately, they will continue to 👀 lurk.
 
Here's some inconvenient facts about some of the NegaVols favorite coach replacements...

Kim Mulkey just lost to a Mississippi State team we beat on their home court for their 3rd conference loss. They lost to Auburn on the road after we beat them as well. How good a coach is she if she can't win consistently with unlimited NIL and the best team money can buy?

Wes Moore's NC State team last year finished 8th in the ACC and lost in the NCAA first round to Princeton.

Jeff Walz lost his star Senior point guard to LSU....(and also lost to MTSU by 18 points last year)

Dawn Staley had a losing record against Holly Warlick until she signed A'ja Wilson.

In other words, there are no such thing as a 'guaranteed' winner.

Quit holding our coach to standards that most coaches can't reach anyway. Most of you all need to quit this 'replace the coach' BS. There's still a lot of basketball to play.

Surely you can see the difference between Mulkey, Staley, and Walz versus what we have with Harper? All three of those coaches have gone to multiple final fours and have won national championships. Mulkey just won it all last season and despite their conference struggles, there is little reason to doubt based on her track record that her team will be clicking come post season play. Kind of silly to bring their names into the discussion about a coach who is on the verge of missing the tournament. If you ask yourself if Harper has any hope of getting us to the level that Mulkey, Staley, and Walz have their programs at, the answer if you’re honest with yourself is ‘no’ or ‘highly unlikely’.

I get if you’re a Harper supporter. That’s fine. But the ‘fire the coach’ rhetoric isn’t BS at this point. The program is headed in a very bad direction. Forget the failure of this season. Look ahead to next season and beyond and ask yourself what the future holds for this program under Harper. She’s not given a lot of reason to believe that she can assemble a team that could bounce back from this season.
 
K Harper continues to recruit a slow front court players. They hold space but their agility, quickness and speed lack what is needed in today's world. Physical shape is another question and Harper does not get it. She coaches the grind it out vs being creative.
 
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Here's some inconvenient facts about some of the NegaVols favorite coach replacements...

Kim Mulkey just lost to a Mississippi State team we beat on their home court for their 3rd conference loss. They lost to Auburn on the road after we beat them as well. How good a coach is she if she can't win consistently with unlimited NIL and the best team money can buy?

Wes Moore's NC State team last year finished 8th in the ACC and lost in the NCAA first round to Princeton.

Jeff Walz lost his star Senior point guard to LSU....(and also lost to MTSU by 18 points last year)

Dawn Staley had a losing record against Holly Warlick until she signed A'ja Wilson.

In other words, there are no such thing as a 'guaranteed' winner.

Quit holding our coach to standards that most coaches can't reach anyway. Most of you all need to quit this 'replace the coach' BS. There's still a lot of basketball to play.

C'mon--you're just cherry-picking. Mulkey has won, what, 3 national titles? Staley has won, what, two? Wes Moore has an outstanding overall coaching record. And yet you want to pretend there is no difference between them and Harper.

Harper was hired to return us to national contender status. She has not come close to doing that, but we should all let the season play out and see where we are. We certainly /should/ make the tournament.
 
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I wish we'd focus as much energy on getting the lack of NIL money problem solved as on replacing a coach who is not going anywhere right now unless she resigns. I have lots of concerns, but recruiting is #1-1000. I believe the insiders who say we are not keeping up in NIL offer, esp the upfront signing guarantee. Otherwise we wouldn't be on so many final lists but land none.

What I find it hard to believe is there's no professional donor development going on to get this right. Kim Mulkey can do this but we can't figure it out? We're leaving it to wonderful but amateur super fans who stage autograph signings? Is this arrangement the last stand of the old line supporters who want to live in 2008 forever and keep everything seperate but sadly unequal? I'm surprised some of the more sensible current donors don't raise bloody hell to get this addressed. If we need to fold back in w Spyre for God's sake do it.
 
You really believe this team can make a deep tournament run??

With consistent play that we are capable of and coaching that brings out this high-level of play,,,absolutely

K Harper continues to recruit a slow front court players. They hold space but their agility, quickness and speed lack what is needed in today's world. Physical shape is another question and Harper does not get it. She coaches the grind it out vs being creative.

I truly believe that Coach Kellie is stilll recruiting for M-valley players. Players she won the MVC with.

That simply will not work for the SEC. You have to be able to take elite athletic players and incorporate both those player into your system,, and your system to enhance those players' strengths. And you have to be able to show both them, and the general viewers significant movement in their individual games.

Kellie has shown stubborness in both of these aspects.

Yes RJ is playing her level/game game in Kellie's system, but there is much inconsistency in the other "elite athlete's" (Jillian, Kaiya, Jazzy P) games...this is why they are so inconsistent. Those 3 payers are not "spark-plug" players, they have to find their rhythm in each game.
I wish we'd focus as much energy on getting the lack of NIL money problem solved as on replacing a coach who is not going anywhere right now unless she resigns. I have lots of concerns, but recruiting is #1-1000. I believe the insiders who say we are not keeping up in NIL offer, esp the upfront signing guarantee. Otherwise we wouldn't be on so many final lists but land none.

What I find it hard to believe is there's no professional donor development going on to get this right. Kim Mulkey can do this but we can't figure it out? We're leaving it to wonderful but amateur super fans who stage autograph signings? Is this arrangement the last stand of the old line supporters who want to live in 2008 forever and keep everything seperate but sadly unequal? I'm surprised some of the more sensible current donors don't raise bloody hell to get this addressed. If we need to fold back in w Spyre for God's sake do it.

This is definitely a shortcoming for such a resourceful university such as TN is.
 
I truly believe that Coach Kellie is stilll recruiting for M-valley players. Players she won the MVC with.
No she's not. Look at who visits and gets offers. She quit recruiting mid level players after she got a class full of them a few years ago. You know, the ones we gripe about as slow and unathletic all the time. Went to elite only recruiting out of hs and we see the result, or lack of. That's the current dilemia. Take what you can get to at least fill roster spots, hold out for the elusive elite, or depend on the portal and pray like hell another Rickea wanders in. Puny NIL narrows those choices.
consistent play that we are capable of
Consistency is precisely what we lack (at least consistency on the good stuff) and precisely what we need. But I'm not as optimistic that this team is capable of it anymore, nor that the staff is capable of getting it out of them. We just can't string several good games together. Which is scary since our season depends on doing exactly that.
 
K Harper continues to recruit a slow front court players. They hold space but their agility, quickness and speed lack what is needed in today's world. Physical shape is another question and Harper does not get it. She coaches the grind it out vs being creative.
Actually the players we have playing there are not post players except Key and Harper didn't recruit her she was already here. We have three stretch fours trying to be post players Jill, Sarah, and Karoline none of them can guard an actual post player except maybe Jill to some extent. Coach Harper has not been able to recruit even one Center of Big Forward in the five years she has been here and that is a big part of the problem. You take any big post like Cardoza, Brink, Betts etc. and we go from being average to elite with just that one player.
 
The biggest issue has been the non-conference scheduling. It was a setback for the developmental of this roster.

SEC play for the LVs has been above average.

The rotations in-game though are still hit or miss.

Nobody should get fired or benched following a loss by 5pts on the road in the SEC to a team you are tied with for 2nd place in the conference.

However, winning EVERY game matters and that was an extremely winnable game in Oxford.

The starting lineup did get off to a better start in this game against OM offensively but gave up too many easy baskets due to a lack of focus or effort but it wasn’t skill.
These were individual defensive issues. Against Vandy at home the defense was completely different and locked in.

At this point talking about personnel flaws in the roster is foolish, on Sunday Jewel Spear was the best player on the court followed by a couple of players from Ole Miss.

On any given night, to beat above average competition your top players have to perform and role players have to be productive. Tennessee’s two top players scored 45 pts with Spear accounting for 30 pts.
This was Spear moment. And I think after going 11/17, she should’ve taken the final shot(s) after cutting the lead down to 72-74 and this could’ve easily been a win for the LVs.
Rickea has had her moments.
Get both playing elite basketball at the same time and this team can win a lot of basketball games.

OAN: Man after this game, I don’t think some of these NVs realize how good Jewel Spear is.
Tennessee is absolutely dominating the portal and we haven’t even seen Talaysia Cooper officially.

This off-season if Jewel Spear returns they will have a key player to build around and find success once again from the portal. I want CKH and her assistants to go after players that fit the mold of Alexus Dye entering their junior or soph. season. Dye was phenomenal in just one season in the LVs system. The most athletic player in the previous 4 seasons besides Jordan Horston and Rennia Davis.
 
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Throw some real money at Becky Hammon. Lady Vols will be back where they should be very quickly.
Now Becky Hammon would be electric, but I agree with others who've said highly unlikely she would even be interested.

My next vote would be for Gail Goestenkors. Hall of Famer who turned Duke into a winning machine as LV fans know all too well. She made the mistake of leaving there and injecting herself into Texas, which was obviously a mistake, but now languishes as a KY assistant. She is a proven winner at the elite level and a fierce competitor and recruiter. We need someone who can come in and rebuild QUICKLY!
 
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Interesting season totals:

Positive:

---For the season we have out-rebounded our opponents, by about 6 a game. Hand clap.

---For the season we've got a total of 20 more assists, total, than our opponents--so maybe averaging 1 assist more per game.
Not bad for us.

---Our shooting average for the season is 43 percent vs. 40 percent for our opponents, so that's pretty good.


Negative:

---Turnovers. We are sloppy with the basketball. On the season we have 68 more TOs than our opponents, which averages
to 3+ turnovers more per game.

---Steals. Our opponents have 60 more steals on the season, and so are averaging about 3 steals more per game.

---Three-point shooting: Our opponents are shooting the THREE at 34 percent compared to 31 percent for us.
 
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Now Becky Hammon would be electric, but I agree with others who've said highly unlikely she would even be interested.

My next vote would be for Gail Goestenkors. Hall of Famer who turned Duke into a winning machine as LV fans know all too well. She made the mistake of leaving there and injecting herself into Texas, which was obviously a mistake, but now languishes as a KY assistant. She is a proven winner at the elite level and a fierce competitor and recruiter. We need someone who can come in and rebuild QUICKLY!

Hammon would be a home-run hire but we'd have to offer her /at least/ $2.5 million per to even begin to interest her, I'm sure. She's supposedly making $1 million a year in the WNBA. I can't imagine that any well-paid pro coach would want to deal with all the hassles involved in college basketball/athletics now--none of which pertain to pro basketball--and thus might only consider if you made them a sit-up-and-take-notice offer. Harper is supposedly making about $1 million annually. Mulkey's new contract reportedly will pay her $2.75 Million and go up to $3.7 million over the next several years.

Goestenkors reportedly is retiring from "on-court coaching" and is 60, so I don't think she'd be a viable candidate.
 
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