Tennessee 2025, part 2 | Page 17 | The Boneyard

Tennessee 2025, part 2

Geew1992 said:
And then there was 3

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I feel sorry for Talaysia. I know many say she left SCar for UT because Paopao was "recruited over her" but I felt that she really fell in love with UT during the recruiting process and came close to originally committing to them. She sat out a full year to play for them and had a really good year in 24/25 before this year's progromatic disaster.

Hope she finds a good landing spot.
 
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Right now, there’s three tiers of teams in the SEC: South Carolina, Texas, LSU, and Vandy; the other teams that were invited to the NCAA Tournament; and everybody else. Tennessee is in that second tier, and appears to be diving into the third tier.

I think it will take one more year of futility with Caldwell’s offense before they pull the plug, but that means the 2026-27 season is a wasted year for the players brought in through the portal.

The good news for Vol Nation: time doesn’t stand still for those top tier teams, either. Dawn, Vic, and Kim will eventually succumb to Father Time, and regime change is problematic for any team when a coaching legend steps down (see: Stanford).
 
I know this was posted in the transfer portal thread, but OMG Tennessee. Total train wreck.

 
Tennessee leaving:
Barker Senior
Robertson Senior
Wolfenbarger Senior
Spearman Senior

Mya Pauldo portal
Mia Pauldo portal
Boyd portal
Hurst portal
Prawl Portal
Latham Portal
Cooper Portal

Staying (for the moment)
Civil

Incoming
Edwards
Minus

I would say I've never seen anything like it, but then in the same year, we have Iowa State. Volnation is in full meltdown mode.
 
The amount of schadenfreude some non UT lovers may feel is understandable. This is a disaster of epic proportions for any team but especially one with the history and support of UT.

TN offers recruits and players a well attended and supported program with luxuries many WCBB programs lack. Time has not stood still and while others are now on the top line, UT certainly wasn't anything to sneeze at.

What's happening now highlights both where the sport is as well as UT. The LVs are much further from the spotlight than under Warlick or Harper, even during Holly's final, disastrous year. The buck stops with Caldwell though and frankly she should be let go since the program will be starting from scratch with players.

This is also endemic of where the sport is now. Full roster turnovers may not be common, but I'd say the day is coming where many mid-level teams, which frankly UT is currently, see this.
 
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I just visited VolNation to take the temperature - not good. And pretty evenly divided between 'KC has to go NOW' and 'Thank goodness all those mid-major lazy money-grubbing players are leaving and KC can replace them all with SEC type players from the portal.' (Which sort of describes what she got from the portal last year, doesn't it?)

I do think TN can win around half their conference games even with a completely new roster - that isn't really a high bar in 18 team conferences - the bottom half of which are mediocre at best. And with an easy OOC you still are looking close at 20+/- wins. (Both teams with 5-11 SEC records recorded 18 wins for the season.)

EDIT: The question for me is how many good players really want to play in a hockey line coaching system, and with the player grapevine turning perhaps negative - NIL money can only do so much.
 
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ucmiami2 said:
I just visited VolNation to take the temperature - not good. And pretty evenly divided between 'KC has to go NOW' and 'Thank goodness all those mid-major lazy money-grubbing players are leaving and KC can replace them all with SEC type players from the portal.' (Which sort of describes what she got from the portal last year, doesn't it?)

I do think TN can win around half their conference games even with a completely new roster - that isn't really a high bar in 18 team conferences - the bottom half of which are mediocre at best. And with an easy OOC you still are looking close at 20+/- wins. (Both teams with 5-11 SEC records recorded 18 wins for the season.)

EDIT: The question for me is how many good players really want to play in a hockey line coaching system, and with the player grapevine turning perhaps negative - NIL money can only do so much.
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SEC is a 16 team conference but I get your point.
 
ucmiami2 said:
EDIT: The question for me is how many good players really want to play in a hockey line coaching system, and with the player grapevine turning perhaps negative - NIL money can only do so much.
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The other question is, who wants to be the first or second (or third or fourth or fifth) player to sign onto a team with three players? There's a fine line between being guaranteed playing time and forfeiting half your games because you can't field a team for lack of players.
 
I’m no TN fan and definitely not a Caldwell fan. Something about her rubs me the wrong way, but that’s my own perspective. Obviously I only know what the public sees and that is a very small piece of a person. Regardless of her amount of blame/responsibility for the situation, I’m sure it’s a pretty dark place for her right now.

Watching TN (or any program) implode is sad. Mostly I’m sad for the players who came to TN with a dream and with goals. It must be so hard to watch that dream die in such an ugly and public manner. Life experiences no one wants at that age.

I also can’t imagine the social media messaging the players are receiving. I hope they all have a strategy for managing social media during this time. At a time when they most need a supportive team around them, their basketball team is dissolving.
 
USMC(ret) said:
Right now, there’s three tiers of teams in the SEC: South Carolina, Texas, LSU, and Vandy; the other teams that were invited to the NCAA Tournament; and everybody else. Tennessee is in that second tier, and appears to be diving into the third tier.

I think it will take one more year of futility with Caldwell’s offense before they pull the plug, but that means the 2026-27 season is a wasted year for the players brought in through the portal.

The good news for Vol Nation: time doesn’t stand still for those top tier teams, either. Dawn, Vic, and Kim will eventually succumb to Father Time, and regime change is problematic for any team when a coaching legend steps down (see: Stanford).
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South Carolina
Texas
LSU

Oklahoma
Vandy
UK
Ole Miss

Tennessee et al
 
visitingcock said:
32 minutes and 28 points is not exactly watching from the bench
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"She watched from the bench as LSU went out."

I didn't say she watched the entire game. Given that she generally closed games for us as a freshman and sophomore when she was playing well, it is odd to claim she made the right decision moving to a program that benched her in crunch time while she was having a career night.
 
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Caldwell just fired asst. coach Tubner, one of two SEC coaches she hired. The other, Lazo, quit to go to LSU. Caldwell now has just 2 assistants from her Marshall days and 1 player, at least for the moment.
 
Bigboote said:
The other question is, who wants to be the first or second (or third or fourth or fifth) player to sign onto a team with three players? There's a fine line between being guaranteed playing time and forfeiting half your games because you can't field a team for lack of players.
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Every year several low-D1/mid-majors have had double-digit out transfers and they've been able to field a team the following year. Tenn ain't gonna have that problem.

Fresno lost 11 transfers last year, and brought in 9. They finished 7/12 of teams in their conference this year.
 
Sifaka said:
Caldwell just fired asst. coach Tubner, one of two SEC coaches she hired. The other, Lazo, quit to go to LSU. Caldwell now has just 2 assistants from her Marshall days and 1 player, at least for the moment.
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She doesn't have a lot of chips left, but she's pushing them all into the center on her system.
 
While I'm no fan of TN, this is really sad. IMO a strong TN is a good thing for WBB (because of the history it represents). Clearly, the coach needs to learn a system which is tailored to the talent she'll have. I'm sure enough players will want to play for TN because of the name and NIL (which seems that TN got) money. The question will be can this coach change...
 
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It is the best thing for the program to start with a clean slate. I just hope she learns the lesson of grabbing the wrong types of players just to increase "the overall talent level." If anything, her system has worked better without selfish, but talented, players.

Once re-established a bit, she can try to add the right kind of highly talented player.

Geno has zero interest in plenty of highly ranked players.
 
ec33 said:
It is the best thing for the program to start with a clean slate. I just hope she learns the lesson of grabbing the wrong types of players just to increase "the overall talent level." If anything, her system has worked better without selfish, but talented, players.

Once re-established a bit, she can try to add the right kind of highly talented player.

Geno has zero interest in plenty of highly ranked players.
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I don't follow the last sentence.
 
ec33 said:
It is the best thing for the program to start with a clean slate. I just hope she learns the lesson of grabbing the wrong types of players just to increase "the overall talent level." If anything, her system has worked better without selfish, but talented, players.

Once re-established a bit, she can try to add the right kind of highly talented player.

Geno has zero interest in plenty of highly ranked players.
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Clean slate?? She brought in her own coaching staff and pretty sure Cooper and Wynn were the only players on the team this year from the previous coaching staff. And Wynn left before post season stating senior day was the last straw. I’m not sure how much more clean slate she needs.

This years team was/is her team. She brought in all the highly talented players, same type of player. Shes admitted she doesn’t know how to recruit but ultimately she has the final say.

You would be surprised by who geno and staff has recruited. Who they thought would be a good fit until the player decided it wasn’t the fit for them
 
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