The Kim Caldwell System

[RetroVol]

It’s relevant to the title of the thread, “Kim Caldwells System”, a system which was built with small team to out athlete other teams while running up and down the court.

Okay. Just from this year's team, and her recruits so far next year, it doesn't seem to me that Kim believes being smaller is part of her system. More athletic and willing to go hard, but not smaller. It looks to me like she did a good job of getting the athleticism she was after with this team.

 

[Skooter]

Okay. Just from this year's team, and her recruits so far next year, it doesn't seem to me that Kim believes being smaller is part of her system. More athletic and willing to go hard, but not smaller. It looks to me like she did a good job of getting the athleticism she was after with this team.

She’s trying to fit her square system with round players. I’m not sure about the play hard part. If you are playing hard, the other team doesn’t get layup after layup.

 

[VintageFan]

Okay, but answer this for me.

If Kim recruits all the talent that posters on this board say she needs -- tall rim guarders, quick athletic posts, great defenders, high percentage three point shooters, etc. -- then why would she need a gimmicky system to compete with top teams, or any teams? Or are we all uncertain that her coaching style and lack of experience would still be a detriment to achieving the lofty goals fans have for the program?

 

[Skooter]

We have a potential STAR/GENERATIONAL TALENT coming in Oliviyah Edwards. When we won the last 2 national championships in 2007/2008, it was superstar Candace Parker and everyone else in supporting and glue level roles. On this team this season, we got too too many Beyonces and not enough players willing to be Kellys and Michelles.

Will be interesting to see what kind of flow Edwarda can get in with 2-4 minutes of PT before sitting.
TBH if I was a player, I wouldn’t like it. Surprised at the recruiting success when players will play in those shifts.

 

[glv98]

Okay. Just from this year's team, and her recruits so far next year, it doesn't seem to me that Kim believes being smaller is part of her system. More athletic and willing to go hard, but not smaller. It looks to me like she did a good job of getting the athleticism she was after with this team.

And yet, they're still not the "right" players.

One thing we all agree on, this system calls for just the right personnel. We've also learned the hard way this year that fitting an athletic type alone does not make them right. Also have learned sometimes they can look right, feel right, but be all wrong.

. Like so much with this ultra fussy system, apparently finding the right players is difficult and will be a year by year crap shot. Hopefully the experience gained every year refines the selection process, but it still depends on the accuracy of evaluation, availability and willingness of those elsusive "right"players.

. Its always said this is high risk/high reward, and right now we're seeing what the highest risks can look like. Potential reward worth this?

 

[LadyVolsDiehard]

Will be interesting to see what kind of flow Edwarda can get in with 2-4 minutes of PT before sitting.
TBH if I was a player, I wouldn’t like it. Surprised at the recruiting success when players will play in those shifts.

Well if you don't like you can opt to not come.
Yes does Kim need to make the adjustments so she and her team can win games, absolutely, but other part of me is saying "These girls chose Tennessee and it wasn't like this system was new once they walked through the doors".

 

[glv98]

Well if you don't like you can opt to not come.
Yes does Kim need to make the adjustments so she and her team can win games, absolutely, but other part of me is saying "These girls chose Tennessee and it wasn't like this system was new once they walked through the doors".

Reasonable for them to expect adjustments if it doesn't work just like you said. So far its not working and she's not adjusting.

 

[RetroVol]

Kim made a comment the other night about consistency of rotations this year compared to last. I gave the JSON files for last season and this to Claude and asked if it could see that in the data. (If you want to see the actual prompt, I'll put it in the AI thread.) It turns out that the ESPN play-by-play files apparently only started reporting substitutions part-way through last year's season -- 6 SEC games (Auburn, Ole Miss, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Georgia) and the 5 postseason games (Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, South Florida, Ohio State, Texas). But that's when the rotations should be stabilized, and they should be now. So, anyway, here's what Claude came up with:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rotation Consistency Analysis: Caldwell Was Right
Quantifying the "We haven't established consistent rotations" claim
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

The data emphatically backs up Caldwell's statement. Using play-by-play substitution data from ESPN, I tracked every lineup stint across both seasons to measure rotation consistency. Here's what the numbers say.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

2024-25: THE TWO-PLATOON SYSTEM WAS REAL AND MEASURABLE

The top 2 lineups alone combined for 26.7% of all minutes across 8-9 games each:

UNIT A — "Speed Group"
Spear / Spearman / Cooper / Boyd / Puckett
53.3 minutes · 12.1% of total minutes · appeared in 8 games

UNIT B — "Size Group"
Spencer / Whitehorn / Darby / Hollingshead / Latham
64.3 minutes · 14.6% of total minutes · appeared in 9 games​

With minor one-player variations on those groups, the top 5 lineups covered 51.2% of total minutes.

The pair overlap data shows just how locked-in these groupings were:

Unit A Pairs:
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Spear + Spearman: 89% shared minutes
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Boyd + Spearman: 87% shared minutes
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Spear + Boyd: 86% shared minutes

Unit B Pairs:
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Hollingshead + Spencer: 90% shared minutes
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Latham + Spencer: 87% shared minutes
▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Spencer + Darby: 86% shared minutes​

These players were functionally locked together. And 33% of all substitution events were full 5-player swaps — the hockey-style rotation in action.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

2025-26: NO EQUIVALENT STRUCTURE EXISTS

The most-used lineup (Barker / Mia Pauldo / Robertson / Cooper / Spearman) accounts for just 5.7% of minutes despite appearing in 17 games — meaning it gets used in brief stints rather than extended runs.

The concentration drop-off is dramatic:

2024-25 2025-26 Change
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
Top 3 Lineups 36.7% 14.3% ▼ 61%
Top 5 Lineups 51.2% 21.2% ▼ 59%
Top 10 Lineups 64.4% 34.9% ▼ 46%
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
Unique Starters 6 / 11 gm 19 / 25 gm
Most-Used Start 3 games 3 games
Full Unit Subs 33.3% 20.8% ▼ 38%
Avg Batch Size 3.25 2.70 ▼ 17%​

She's used 19 different starting lineups in 25 games, with no starting five used more than 3 times. The full-unit sub rate dropped from 33% to 21%, meaning she's making more piecemeal substitutions instead of swapping groups as units.

The highest pair overlap this season is Cooper + Spearman at 81% — decent, but in 2024-25 three different pairs exceeded 86%. There's no bench unit approaching the consistency of last year's Unit B.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

BOTTOM LINE

In 2024-25, Caldwell had two defined 5-player units she could swap as groups, and those groups plus minor variations accounted for over half of all playing time. In 2025-26, minutes are spread across 235 different lineup combinations with nothing approaching that level of structure. She's not just saying it — the substitution data proves it.

Analysis based on ESPN play-by-play substitution data. 2024-25: 11 games (SEC + postseason). 2025-26: 25 games (full season through Feb 2026). Starting lineups derived from first sub-out patterns. "Overlap %" = shared minutes / lesser player's total minutes.​

 

[RetroVol]

ultra fussy system, apparently finding the right players is difficult and will be a year by year crap shot

I understand the criticism is aimed at the system the second year through the SEC. But Kim has been a head coach for what, 13 years now. Including twice going to a D1 school and running the system with whatever players she could put together on short notice. And she has NEVER, not once, had the problems she has experienced this year. Last year's team didn't seem to have trouble learning it or running it. With arguably less athletic players, they were more effective with the press, played tough with top teams, beat UCONN and Ohio State, and gave Texas all they wanted their second time seeing them in the NCAA. Under the circumstances, the criticism that the system is just too "fussy" seems less in line with the data than some alternative explanations.

 

[creekdipper]

I see National Championship if Huepel would also wear a suit.

Heck, if he'd just wear a girdle.

 

[glv98]

Kim made a comment the other night about consistency of rotations this year compared to last. I gave the JSON files for last season and this to Claude and asked if it could see that in the data. (If you want to see the actual prompt, I'll put it in the AI thread.) It turns out that the ESPN play-by-play files apparently only started reporting substitutions part-way through last year's season -- 6 SEC games (Auburn, Ole Miss, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Georgia) and the 5 postseason games (Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, South Florida, Ohio State, Texas). But that's when the rotations should be stabilized, and they should be now. So, anyway, here's what Claude came up with:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rotation Consistency Analysis: Caldwell Was Right
Quantifying the "We haven't established consistent rotations" claim
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

The data emphatically backs up Caldwell's statement. Using play-by-play substitution data from ESPN, I tracked every lineup stint across both seasons to measure rotation consistency. Here's what the numbers say.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

2024-25: THE TWO-PLATOON SYSTEM WAS REAL AND MEASURABLE

The top 2 lineups alone combined for 26.7% of all minutes across 8-9 games each:

UNIT A — "Speed Group"​

Spear / Spearman / Cooper / Boyd / Puckett​

53.3 minutes · 12.1% of total minutes · appeared in 8 games​

​

UNIT B — "Size Group"​

Spencer / Whitehorn / Darby / Hollingshead / Latham​

64.3 minutes · 14.6% of total minutes · appeared in 9 games​

With minor one-player variations on those groups, the top 5 lineups covered 51.2% of total minutes.

The pair overlap data shows just how locked-in these groupings were:

Unit A Pairs:​

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Spear + Spearman: 89% shared minutes​

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Boyd + Spearman: 87% shared minutes​

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Spear + Boyd: 86% shared minutes​

​

Unit B Pairs:​

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Hollingshead + Spencer: 90% shared minutes​

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Latham + Spencer: 87% shared minutes​

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ Spencer + Darby: 86% shared minutes​

These players were functionally locked together. And 33% of all substitution events were full 5-player swaps — the hockey-style rotation in action.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

2025-26: NO EQUIVALENT STRUCTURE EXISTS

The most-used lineup (Barker / Mia Pauldo / Robertson / Cooper / Spearman) accounts for just 5.7% of minutes despite appearing in 17 games — meaning it gets used in brief stints rather than extended runs.

The concentration drop-off is dramatic:​

​

2024-25 2025-26 Change​

─────────────────────────────────────────────────​

Top 3 Lineups 36.7% 14.3% ▼ 61%​

Top 5 Lineups 51.2% 21.2% ▼ 59%​

Top 10 Lineups 64.4% 34.9% ▼ 46%​

─────────────────────────────────────────────────​

Unique Starters 6 / 11 gm 19 / 25 gm​

Most-Used Start 3 games 3 games​

Full Unit Subs 33.3% 20.8% ▼ 38%​

Avg Batch Size 3.25 2.70 ▼ 17%​

She's used 19 different starting lineups in 25 games, with no starting five used more than 3 times. The full-unit sub rate dropped from 33% to 21%, meaning she's making more piecemeal substitutions instead of swapping groups as units.

The highest pair overlap this season is Cooper + Spearman at 81% — decent, but in 2024-25 three different pairs exceeded 86%. There's no bench unit approaching the consistency of last year's Unit B.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━​

BOTTOM LINE

In 2024-25, Caldwell had two defined 5-player units she could swap as groups, and those groups plus minor variations accounted for over half of all playing time. In 2025-26, minutes are spread across 235 different lineup combinations with nothing approaching that level of structure. She's not just saying it — the substitution data proves it.

Analysis based on ESPN play-by-play substitution data. 2024-25: 11 games (SEC + postseason). 2025-26: 25 games (full season through Feb 2026). Starting lineups derived from first sub-out patterns. "Overlap %" = shared minutes / lesser player's total minutes.​

But why? With better athletes hand picked for this system, why are rotations out of control?

 

[glv98]

Under the circumstances, the criticism that the system is just too "fussy" seems less in line with the data than some alternative explanations.

Such as?

 

[glv98]

Last year's team didn't seem to have trouble learning it or running it.

Debatable. Very mixed result. Also several key players not chosen by CKC.

 

[RetroVol]

Despite my post above, I'm not completely defending Kim's system. I've said I think she will sit down and do a lot of thinking and talking with her staff and, hopefully, others as soon as the season is done. (Though I doubt a total ditch and switch is likely.)

But I do think there are some persuasive arguments that have come up against Kim just running the system as is going forward at Tennessee, and one of them involves the quality of players. I'm on record that Big Oh looks like a spectacular recruit. But even if she's not, overall in women's basketball, spectacular individual players seem to be a huge component of Final Four teams, and Tennessee has had it's share, sometimes more than one at the same time. What would Kim do with Candace, Chamique, Tamika, or, for heaven's sakes and going outside the Lady Vols, Caitlin Clark? I'm not the first one to say it on here, but you keep generational talents on the court as much as possible.

And, since this is a system, once you go away from "play like it's the last two minutes of the championship and then come out and take a rest" out of this system, I'm not sure how the rest of it hangs together. You could still press more than other teams, run a deeper bench with more frequent substitutions, and go for aggressive offensive rebounding and a high pace. You could also prioritize a five-out offense, interchangeable roles for most players, but when a generational talent comes along, she needs to be used to maximum advantage. And that may mean backing off some on energy burned pressing to give them a chance to breathe.

 

[RetroVol]

Such as?

`. That there are real attitude problems with some players on this team that are destroying consistency.
2. That enough players on this team wouldn't consistently play with both effort and mental focus on defense to generate the turnovers needed to give easy scoring opportunities.
3. Whatever it is that has so many of our players making great drives to the basket, then not hitting the shot.

 

[RetroVol]

Debatable. Very mixed result. Also several key players not chosen by CKC.

Do you really think it is debatable that last year's team over-performed pre-season expectations? And, as I said, that was the second time Kim ran her system with what was on hand or she could garner through the portal. Plus, Glenville State jumped in performance significantly her first year and dropped the year after she left. Marshall did the same. Also, she was year-to-year consistent at Glenville State. Her opposing coaches never adapted, and the "fussy" system never failed.

 

[glv98]

`. That there are real attitude problems with some players on this team that are destroying consistency.
2. That enough players on this team wouldn't consistently play with both effort and mental focus on defense to generate the turnovers needed to give easy scoring opportunities.
3. Whatever it is that has so many of our players making great drives to the basket, then not hitting the shot.

That's one way to look at it, and it's most likely the way Kim looks at it. This year's team, which she hand selected, just turned out to be a particularly acrimonious, slow to catch on, ultimately selfish group. In spite of her obvious miscalculations in roster building, the theory is this is a fluke which is unlikely to happen year after year. Which means CKC does'nt need to change much if anything about her system, except the players she selects for it

To me thats a scary af high risk gamble, esp considering the damage taken on this year is going to make recruiting the elusive right players even harder.

 

[1reVOLver]

`. That there are real attitude problems with some players on this team that are destroying consistency.
2. That enough players on this team wouldn't consistently play with both effort and mental focus on defense to generate the turnovers needed to give easy scoring opportunities.
3. Whatever it is that has so many of our players making great drives to the basket, then not hitting the shot.

And…assuming Claude hasn’t been chomping on magik shrooms…

2025-26: NO EQUIVALENT STRUCTURE EXISTS

The most-used lineup (Barker / Mia Pauldo / Robertson / Cooper / Spearman) accounts for just 5.7% of minutes despite appearing in 17 games — meaning it gets used in brief stints rather than extended runs.

The concentration drop-off is dramatic:

2024-25 2025-26 Change
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
Top 3 Lineups 36.7% 14.3% ▼ 61%
Top 5 Lineups 51.2% 21.2% ▼ 59%
Top 10 Lineups 64.4% 34.9% ▼ 46%
─────────────────────────────────────────────────
Unique Starters 6 / 11 gm 19 / 25 gm
Most-Used Start 3 games 3 games
Full Unit Subs 33.3% 20.8% ▼ 38%
Avg Batch Size 3.25 2.70 ▼ 17%
She's used 19 different starting lineups in 25 games, with no starting five used more than 3 times. The full-unit sub rate dropped from 33% to 21%, meaning she's making more piecemeal substitutions instead of swapping groups as units.

The highest pair overlap this season is Cooper + Spearman at 81% — decent, but in 2024-25 three different pairs exceeded 86%. There's no bench unit approaching the consistency of last year's Unit B.

The above indicates that while the coach frequently decries lack of consistency, the coach is behaving with little consistency in terms of last year’s more successful rotations and subbing patterns. Curious.

 

[glv98]

Do you really think it is debatable that last year's team over-performed pre-season expectations? And, as I said, that was the second time Kim ran her system with what was on hand or she could garner through the portal. Plus, Glenville State jumped in performance significantly her first year and dropped the year after she left. Marshall did the same. Also, she was year-to-year consistent at Glenville State. Her opposing coaches never adapted, and the "fussy" system never failed.

Last year was pretty much what I expected except for the extremes. Did not expect the UConn win but did not expect to lose to Vandy twice and to Georgia at home. Thought they'd pretty much be mid pack SEC and possible Second Round or Sweet Sixteen at best, which is exactly what they were.

 

[RetroVol]

But why? With better athletes hand picked for this system, why are rotations out of control?

Coach is the same. System is the same. It's worked over and over. What does that leave? This group of players. And, in my mind, not the group, it's a few who were keys that have not consistently shown up and put out the disciplined, focused effort that other teams have given and been rewarded for, and that started with Ruby. I'm glad she's found a spot, but her lapses in judgment and self-control have taken on a trademark quality for this team.

 

[AllVols3]

Debatable. Very mixed result. Also several key players not chosen by CKC.

You lost 3 very good basketball IQ players from last years team. We replaced them with 2 that gives effort when they choose to. Also, both have a questionable basketball IQ. Barker has SO MUCH TALENT, problem is her effort and IQ(basketball) is questionable at best.

 

[glv98]

And…assuming Claude hasn’t been chomping on magik shrooms…

The above indicates that while the coach frequently decries lack of consistency, the coach is behaving with little consistency in terms of last year’s more successful rotations and subbing patterns. Curious.

She said in her last presser, surprise!, it's the player's fault because they're too inconsistent to be rotated in on a predetermined pattern at any point in the game. Thus they've screwed up the analytic driven sub pattern

 

[AllVols3]

Coach is the same. System is the same. It's worked over and over. What does that leave? This group of players. And, in my mind, not the group, it's a few who were keys that have not consistently shown up and put out the disciplined, focused effort that other teams have given and been rewarded for, and that started with Ruby. I'm glad she's found a spot, but her lapses in judgment and self-control have taken on a trademark quality for this team.

Spot on!!!

 

[glv98]

Coach is the same. System is the same. It's worked over and over. What does that leave? This group of players. And, in my mind, not the group, it's a few who were keys that have not consistently shown up and put out the disciplined, focused effort that other teams have given and been rewarded for, and that started with Ruby. I'm glad she's found a spot, but her lapses in judgment and self-control have taken on a trademark quality for this team.

What has the coach done successfully to change any of that.? That's the big disconnect, she points out this problem but no solution. She very much seems to have given up on this team which she chose. Maybe you and she are right, maybe they're irredeemable

It's a combination of incorrectly constructed roster for the preferred system and a coaching staff unwilling or unable to adjust to the roster they ended up with.

 

[RetroVol]

The above indicates that while the coach frequently decries lack of consistency, the coach is behaving with little consistency in terms of last year’s more successful rotations and subbing patterns. Curious.

I'm sorry, but what? Are you suggesting Kim and her staff are being inconsistent for no reason? That a staff that was happy to find and use steady combinations in 2024-2025 (and I would guess in prior years) just decided on a whim to start randomly grouping players this year? What could possibly make them do that? And it flies in the face of what Kim said. It's player performances that kept them hunting for combinations that they could rely on. I submit there is little rational basis for such a suggestion.