By Logan Starkey
One. That’s how many players Tennessee women’s basketball has rostered for next season.
Gabby Minus, a four-star forward ranked 47th in the nation, is the only person actually committed to playing basketball at arguably the greatest women’s basketball school of all time.
How is that even possible?
This season was nothing short of a major dysfunctional disaster for Tennessee.
16 wins, the least in school history. 14 losses, tied for the most in school history. After starting 14-3, they finished the season 2-11 in their last 13. Seriously, how did they even make the tournament?
Players gave up. Head coach Kim Caldwell lost the reins. She couldn’t control her locker room, and it led to players quitting on a season halfway through.
Janiah Barker didn’t travel with the team to play Oklahoma. Deniya Prawl publicly denied a rumor that now-fired assistant coach Roman Tubner constantly undermined Caldwell. Lead assistant Gabe Lazo, who spearheaded the elite recruiting class Tennessee recruited last season, left to join LSU as an assistant before taking the UCF head coach opening.
It would be easy to blame the players. To say they didn’t try, and this obviously isn’t Caldwell’s fault. It would also be unfair.
There’s roster turnover, and then there’s zero returning players and your top two assistants leaving.
If everyone around you is leaving, you are the problem.
Caldwell found success in her first season. Her system “worked” because Tennessee had an elite offense that could outwork the defensive flaws in running a man-to-man press that generally wasn’t very successful for an entire game. When the Tennessee offense couldn’t cover up those defensive issues this season? Their season crashed and burned.
Caldwell didn’t make adjustments. She never tried anything new. Her players responded by not trying at all.
It seems as though Caldwell’s reign on Rocky Top will continue. She has a mountain and a half to climb to re-earn the trust of the Lady Vol faithful. Next season can’t be anything but a rousing success because Caldwell’s seat is the hottest in the country. She has one of the desirable jobs in the sport, and she just had the worst season in program history. There needs to be major improvement immediately, or this may be the shortest coaching tenure in Tennessee women’s basketball history.