Official: UT hires Kim Caldwell as the new coach for Lady Vols basketball

#201
#201
What a bunch of cry babies on here. She's a winner. Can she recruit at the highest level, that's the question. We were not going to hire away any of the coaches you all experts thought. Either get behind her 100% or cheer for someone else!!! I for one will be behind any coach at tennessee 1000%!!!
 
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#202
#202
kayman1 said:
What a bunch of cry babies on here. She's a winner. Can she recruit at the highest level, that's the question. We were not going to hire away any of the coaches you all experts thought. Either get behind her 100% or cheer for someone else!!! I for one will be behind any coach at tennessee 1000%!!!
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So I guess we turn into Louisiana Tech.
 
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#205
#205
vols 30 said:
I bet you wanted Rick Barnes fired after we went 15-19 his 1st year at UT.
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I seem to remember Donnie Tyndall being fired after 1 year and the program being in the crapper the year before he took the job. Rick had years of proving he could win at this level. It’s nowhere near the same. There are arguments for her but this isn’t it.
 
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#206
#206
First and foremost, welcome Coach Caldwell. I hope you are the “sleeper hire” of the century.

Stepping back, however, the timing of this "high risk-high reward" hire is, from an outside perspective, hard to understand. Why roll the dice now?

Coach Caldwell would have been an option next season and would have gained a 2nd year of D1 coaching experience and given the UTAD another data point to assess. But why should White have waited?

Okay, this roster desperately needs 2 to 3 quality players from the transfer portal. Kellie has an excellent record in the portal and likely had some connections in play. We are also seeing two big de-commits and there is now a risk of current players transferring which would further heighten the roster problem. Unlike Brooks at KY, Caldwell is not going to bring elite players with her. In the transfer window, a rookie coach from Marshal is going to be at a disadvantage there.

Also, it would have seemed only fair to assess how Kellie’s high school recruiting class would fare under an improved NIL program (which several have reported is now in place). At the end of next year, Kellie might have taken this team to the S16 (or maybe better) and had a strong 2025 class in place and suddenly, she looks really good. If the team did not hit those marks, then White could have assessed where Coach Caldwell, among other options who might have come on the radar screen are at.

Last thing, one conjecture on this board is that White had to sack Kellie in order to get a better NIL package in place because the big donors did not have faith in her. That argument would be credible if the hire had, indeed, been a “name” coach. But, it is very hard to believe that the same donors who presumably were financially strangling the program because they did not trust Kellie would now start writing big checks for a newbie coach from a lower tier of mid major. I am going with EarlVol's statement that the NIL was in place with Kellie.

The logical inference is that White wanted “his coach” at the helm and Kellie not making the S16 provided the justification for making a change (which would also help the new coach to look better since she no longer had the same NIL disadvantage where Kellie might have started killing it in recruiting).

I am open to the idea that Caldwell is just an inherently better coach than Kellie Harper (I really know little about her).

So, time will tell if White's move was brilliance or arrogance.

I really am hoping for the former (and am quite glad a woman coach got the job, flame me I don’t care). But Coach Caldwell’s first big challenge will be rebuilding a roster in challenging circumstances.
 
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#207
#207
the doom and gloom is incredible and many opinions as said before are from those who thought holly and kelli were just what our program needed many still think it

danny went out and found a program builder lets get behind her
 
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#211
#211
turbovol said:
Check out Hurley's record at Arizona State. He's won less than 50 percent of his conference games in a weak basketball
conference. It's astounding that he still has a job.
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How did Hurley do at Buffalo? Danny White's job was to hire someone who would be successful there, and he accomplished that. Who cares about what happens with the coach when they leave for another job?
 
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#214
#214
Looks like an excellent hire. Lot of faith in White. Nate Oats coached in the Final Four last night. White hired him at Buffalo when his only head coaching experience was as a high school head coach.

Staley arrived at South Carolina with 8 years head coaching experience and one NCAA T win. Kim has 8 seasons as head coach, an NCAA title, NCAA final four, and multiple other NCAA appearances. She clearly takes equal talent at equal schools/divisions and wins with it.

Plenty of great coaches started at Div II. Jim Calhoun started in Div II and then got the UConn job and won 4 national titles. Jody Conradt won 900 games after she started in Div II. Silvia Hatchell coached Div II before she went to UNC and won a national championship there, she ended up with over 1000 career wins. Cheney State was Div II for the first 8 years of C. Vivian Stringer's coaching career. They moved to Div 1 and she went to the AIAW tournament in year one, the quarters in year two, was national runner up in the first ever women's NCAA T in 1982. She took three schools to the Final Four after starting in Div II.

If you can coach, you can coach, regardless of Division. Kim winning 87 percent of her games over 8 years shows she can coach.
 
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#215
#215
spojo13 said:
I seem to remember Donnie Tyndall being fired after 1 year and the program being in the crapper the year before he took the job. Rick had years of proving he could win at this level. It’s nowhere near the same. There are arguments for her but this isn’t it.
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Donnie Tyndall wasn’t fired for losing basketball games.
 
#216
#216
volfan__18 said:
I’m sorry but this just isn’t a good hire. I cannot wrap my head around firing kellie who has proven she can atleast win for this. It’s a slap in the face.
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I am sure there was a lot of people saying the same thing about ADs when they hired guys like Nick Saban, Tom Izzo, Roy Williams when they were young and got their first head coaching job.
 
#217
#217
volfan__18 said:
I’m sorry but this just isn’t a good hire. I cannot wrap my head around firing kellie who has proven she can atleast win for this. It’s a slap in the face.
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Kellie proved she has trouble making in game decisions as a coach. She loves Tennessee but isn't a top level coach.
 
#218
#218
DarkPhoenix said:
She won’t get any elite portal players and she has none to bring from her team. Our roster is not good enough to compete for a championship.
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That will be her immediate challenge. It will be interesting see how this plays out. I won't say much to not be a negative nellie but Coach Caldwell has the starting deck stacked a bit against her.
 
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#219
#219
Boston Vol said:
How did Hurley do at Buffalo? Danny White's job was to hire someone who would be successful there, and he accomplished that. Who cares about what happens with the coach when they leave for another job?
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Bobby Hurley had name recognition, that helps with recruiting.
 
#220
#220
DarkPhoenix said:
She won’t get any elite portal players and she has none to bring from her team. Our roster is not good enough to compete for a championship.
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Well we haven't competed for championships in about 12 years so I think we will be fine sweetie. There is a real possibility that next year may not be great, but neither were the last 8 years.
 
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#222
#222
VolArmy74 said:
Looks like an excellent hire. Lot of faith in White. Nate Oats coached in the Final Four last night. White hired him at Buffalo when his only head coaching experience was as a high school head coach.

Staley arrived at South Carolina with 8 years head coaching experience and one NCAA T win. Kim has 8 seasons as head coach, an NCAA title, NCAA final four, and multiple other NCAA appearances. She clearly takes equal talent at equal schools/divisions and wins with it.

Plenty of great coaches started at Div II. Jim Calhoun started in Div II and then got the UConn job and won 4 national titles. Jody Conradt won 900 games after she started in Div II. Silvia Hatchell coached Div II before she went to UNC and won a national championship there, she ended up with over 1000 career wins. Cheney State was Div II for the first 8 years of C. Vivian Stringer's coaching career. They moved to Div 1 and she went to the AIAW tournament in year one, the quarters in year two, was national runner up in the first ever women's NCAA T in 1982. She took three schools to the Final Four after starting in Div II.

If you can coach, you can coach, regardless of Division. Kim winning 87 percent of her games over 8 years shows she can coach.
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This is a different era with Nil, u need an immediate impact.
 
#224
#224
volbeast33 said:
Donnie Tyndall wasn’t fired for losing basketball games.
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does that matter? Anyone dumb enough to be angry at Rick Barnes first season after that mess was in the minority. Rick was established and had major ground to make up. Kellie lost against ranked opponents but she still had us in every tournament and two seed sixteens. These two things are not the same.
 
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#225
#225
Volfan1017 said:
Well we haven't competed for championships in about 12 years so I think we will be fine sweetie. There is a real possibility that next year may not be great, but neither were the last 8 years.
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But we had hope with a generational player like RIckes, and a couple of elite recruits coming in the next couple of years.
 
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