Thoughts on the hire of Kim Caldwell

[Volfan2012]

I’m very glad we moved away from the husband and wife coaching set up for women’s basketball.

Would rather see an all female staff (and this is coming from a man). For as long as the men’s game is gatekept from female coaches the ladies should do the same. I’d tell them fellas to take a hike.

Did we waiting to find out what her husband is going to do. He is an Assistant with the men's team at Marshall. Is he going to try and keep that job. No job. Closer job to Knoxville. Become an Assistant on her staff.

 

[utvolpj]

As someone posted before, Teri Moren is an Indiana native who, even if she would have loved to coach the Lady Vols, she's now In a situation most of us get to at one point: Her mother died after she took her current job, and now her elderly father needs her support there in Indiana. Moren was not in a position to be able to move at this time.

Heard credible information that he spoke with Moren at Indiana as well. But she’s too comfortable there at the moment.

From another poster. Tifwiw

 

[VolBall09]

Maybe everyone including Danny thought there would be more interest in the job. Maybe we’re all so insulated that we thought this was a prime spot, but on the outside, it isn’t.

I think there was more legit interest but I still don’t think this is an attractive job. Most people are just afraid of coaching in the shadow of a legend.

However, Tennessee if oft mentioned in the same breath as ODU and LA Tech which I think is silly. We are not the same, we are an SEC school with SEC money and tradition. Sports across the board are doing really well at UT, it’s beautiful campus and Knoxville is a pretty wonderful place to live.

ODU and La Tech are mid major schools in mid-major conferences that happened to have major WBB programs in the infancy of the sport. They were never going to be able to get back in the game once they slipped.

 

[VolBall09]

From another poster. Tifwiw

Nah I saw it posted on Twitter by several journalists close to the IU program.

 

[VolBall09]

Did we waiting to find out what her husband is going to do. He is an Assistant with the men's team at Marshall. Is he going to try and keep that job. No job. Closer job to Knoxville. Become an Assistant on her staff.

If she’s smart he needs to get into AAU coaching at the HS level and build some super awesome connections for his wifey lol

 

[utvolpj]

Nah I saw it posted on Twitter by several journalists close to the IU program.

You said she was "comfortable" which is really a bad label for what seems to be happening.

 

[WVU05UT09]

From another poster. Tifwiw

She may have an interesting decision this time next year. I have to believe Katie Gearlds is on thin ice at Purdue and Teri played at Purdue. Problem is her father's home is much closer to Bloomington than West Lafayette.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

Watch this and tell me how excited you are...has any Power 5 school hired a coach that lost their last game by 43 points? ...and Virginia Tech was playing without their all-star post, Elizabeth Kitley.

Her roster at Marshall looks similar to ours, everyone says they play at a fast pace but they look slow like us. They gave up wide open 3’s, didn’t contest layups, everything we’ve been doing the last few years.

 

[spojo13]

Being in the SEC gives us an advantage over those teams for sure. The athletics are stronger across the board, but it’s obvious that the Lady Vols are not looked at as a premier landing spot anymore.

 

[utvolpj]

Watch this and tell me how excited you are...has any Power 5 school hired a coach that lost their last game by 43 points? ...and Virginia Tech was playing without their all-star post, Elizabeth Kitley.

You should also post the video of Marshall beating the Gators. But only if you're interested in a fair assessment

 

[Dadof2Vols]

I think we should see who becomes her assistants before judging to much. Could be all-star for all we know

To help her to be successful, DW must personally step up in two areas. Help her recruit several good $EC level a$$instants by showing them the money and two rally the boosters to bring the NIL dollar$.

If DW does that she stands a chance of being above average in year 1.

 

[VolBall09]

Being in the SEC gives us an advantage over those teams for sure. The athletics are stronger across the board, but it’s obvious that the Lady Vols are not looked at as a premier landing spot anymore.

No, we haven’t been since we hired Harper.

She showed no ability to recruit top talent. Her best recruiting class was Holly’s last class.

Even with the program in a total free fall Holly could still reel them in.

Outside of Horston her best HS recruit is probably Puckett and she’s been just above average basically.

I have a hard time crediting her much for getting Jackson and Spear to Knoxville. Truly believe Horston and her mom and had more to do with getting Rickea and her mom to UT, then Rickea definitely recruited Jewel. Watched that happen after the season, they knew each other from USA ball and Jackson knew she needed help or her team was toast.

 

[BigOrangeMojo]

It's a huge jump up for her. Can she recruit at this level? Can she build out a staff for this level? Will she be able to get the NIL funds flowing? How does she handle the extra responsibilities and pressure with a job like this?

I have no idea on those questions and no one else does here as well. She's a winner and that's big but this is a huge step up...

 

[spojo13]

To help her to be successful, DW must personally step up in two areas. Help her recruit several good $EC level a$$instants by showing them the money and two rally the boosters to bring the NIL dollar$.

If DW does that she stands a chance of being above average in year 1.

I’ve mentioned we’re going to have to back up the brink trucks in order to sell playing here at first. I would think Danny understand that.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

No, we haven’t been since we hired Harper.

She showed no ability to recruit top talent. Her best recruiting class was Holly’s last class.

Even with the program in a total free fall Holly could still reel them in.

Outside of Horston her best HS recruit is probably Puckett and she’s been just above average basically.

I have a hard time crediting her much for getting Jackson and Spear to Knoxville. Truly believe Horston and her mom and had more to do with getting Rickea and her mom to UT, then Rickea definitely recruited Jewel. Watched that happen after the season, they knew each other from USA ball and Jackson knew she needed help or her team was toast.

Rickea didn’t recruit Jewel at all.

 

[Dadof2Vols]

What I find strange about UT is that we don't seem to do actual coaching "searches" anymore. That may account for our problems.

When Summitt retired, we didn't conduct a search for a replacement. She apparently wanted Warlick to succeed her--a longtime no. 2 assistant, a few years as No. 1 and, most of all, "friend of Pat." She failed. When Warlick was let go, Fulmer didn't conduct a search. He did a sort of lazy, pretend search, quickly focusing on two former Vol players associated with Summitt--Lawson (no college coaching experience) and Harper. He hired Harper. She did not succeed.

When Pruitt was fired as football coach, White by all accounts did little more than a cursory search for new coach. He apparently made a stab at hiring Penn State's coach--but didn't do much searching beyond that. When Franklin declined the approach, White hired the football he'd just left at UCF--Heuepel. White's first hire.

White's second hire was our current soccer coach. No search. Longtime assistant. White talked to the players, the players like Kirt. He hired Kirt. It's looking problematic.

And now this: I don't know for certain--but it's appears that there really wasn't much of a search. Either he had this idea early on that he wanted to hire her, which I'd bet is the case---or she was somewhere down the list and we got turned down by various coaches in quick succession and he got down to her. I don't think that's what happened.. It's all moot. It would be nice to get the backstory about hires, but we never do.

I think it is how you define search.

We have no idea how much searching and research he did before the public firing. Good ADs have a plan and execute to it which would mean he has been working on his plan and having research done since before start of season or at worst once it was determined 30-45 days ago that CKJH was probably done.

If you are only defining it starting April 1, then you are probably right.

 

[Berry4Heisman14]

I can’t figure out why some of you aren’t excited with this hire. Winner everywhere she’s been, and winning at Marshall isn’t easy.

 

[spojo13]

No, we haven’t been since we hired Harper.

She showed no ability to recruit top talent. Her best recruiting class was Holly’s last class.

Even with the program in a total free fall Holly could still reel them in.

Outside of Horston her best HS recruit is probably Puckett and she’s been just above average basically.

I have a hard time crediting her much for getting Jackson and Spear to Knoxville. Truly believe Horston and her mom and had more to do with getting Rickea and her mom to UT, then Rickea definitely recruited Jewel. Watched that happen after the season, they knew each other from USA ball and Jackson knew she needed help or her team was toast.

I don’t know how much interest there was last time bc I think Fulmer had his eyes set firmly on who we wanted. Obviously, it doesn’t sell itself anymore, or we would have had players lined up since no one but UConn can match our history. I don’t know what factors went into our transfers, and I’m ready to move on from Kellie’s failures here. I want to remember her as a great player and person. I thought for sure someone like Moren would be interested since she would have so much more support than Indiana does for women’s basketball. I was dead wrong.

 

[KB5252]

My problem is did White even go after any big time P5 winner? Maybe he did and they all turned him down. I don’t know.

My guess, he reached out through back channels to gauge interest.

 

[volforlife10]

I can’t figure out why some of you aren’t excited with this hire. Winner everywhere she’s been, and winning at Marshall isn’t easy.

i think more would be less wary if she had a little more D1 experience. her one year at marshall was really good, but it was just one year so there’s not much to go off when it comes to her coaching D1 basketball.

 

[spojo13]

My guess, he reached out his back channels to gauge interest.

To me it looks like he was dead set on moving on from Harper, point blank period. He knew he needed a new coach and probably put feelers out and saw that his pool wouldn’t be that large. He made his best educated guess on who was left would be the most successful.

 

[brittannica]

Rickea didn’t recruit Jewel at all.

Lots of articles detailing how Jewel’s dad suggested she consider Tennessee after Jordan Horston’s success. Thanks, Mr. Spear.

 

[turbovol]

When is the last time that a major program in need of a coach, men or women, said: "Huh, I wonder if there are any good coaches
in Div. II?" USC just hired a new men's coach--nabbed him from Arkansas. Arkansas, now needing a coach, tried to hire the well-respected coach
at Ole Miss and then the coach at Kansas State. They declined, so Arkansas pitched Calipari at Kentucky--and got him! Their ADs didn't say, "Ah, to hell with established winners, lemme see if there are any good coaches with 1 year of mid-major experience." Nobody does that. It is virtually unprecedented.

If Barnes retired tomorrow, would White say: "Hmmm, I've got my eye on this guy who killed it in Div. II and just had a super year at Appalachian State. He could be the answer." Would he? Would the men's fan base be happy with that? No, they would not. And I doubt White would do it--but knowing him, I wouldn't rule it out.

 

[utvolpj]

When is the last time that a major program in need of a coach, men or women, said: "Huh, I wonder if there are any good coaches
in Div. II?" USC just hired a new men's coach--nabbed him from Arkansas. Arkansas, now needing a coach, tried to hire the well-respected coach
at Ole Miss and then the coach at Kansas State. They declined, so Arkansas pitched Calipari at Kentucky--and got him! Their ADs didn't say, "Ah, to hell with established winners, lemme see if there are any good coaches with 1 year of mid-major experience." Nobody does that. It is virtually unprecedented.

If Barnes retired tomorrow, would White say: "Hmmm, I've got my eye on this guy who killed it in Div. II and just had a super year at Appalachian State. He could be the answer." Would he? Would the men's fan base be happy with that? No, they would not. And I doubt White would do it--but knowing him, I wouldn't rule it out.

The men's team has been dealing with mid major coaches for decades. He also hired one for the most important coaching job on campus. Will he do it when Barnes retires? Maybe not but there's no way of knowing. If you check his history he's definitely had success with it before

 

[WVU05UT09]

Being in the SEC gives us an advantage over those teams for sure. The athletics are stronger across the board, but it’s obvious that the Lady Vols are not looked at as a premier landing spot anymore.

I know this is a popular take especially with the SEC taking the last three but the truth is this is a now a bi-polar world--SEC and Big Ten. That will become clearer in the next 2-3 years.

The incentives for coaches to go from USC (Lindsey Gottleib) or Indiana (Teri Moren) that existed 10-20 years ago are not there now. There is so much money floating around with $50M+ tv distributions.

Home run hires for SEC and Big Ten schools will increasingly be Big 12-ACC hires.