Tennessee 2025, part 2

[ucmiami2]

I think Caldwell's system works well at most levels of play - but not at the highest level. Once I saw her system in action at Tennessee I knew it was destined to fail. The powers that be in Tennessee should have done their due diligence and would have recognized that. Bringing in a first rate recruiter to assist Harper would have been a better use of funds imo

It is generally what coaches do when they are trying to hide the fact they have holes in a half court team - usually based on not having top end talent in relation to their conference mates. If you can create chaos and hit some threes, you can win more than you lose. That was what happened with Mitchell coaching at KY, he had a few good players and a lot of meh, so he created his '40 minutes of hell' defense - won a lot of games, but got wiped out when he played really good will coached teams, and by the second year even the just good teams had begun to figure it out.

TN had some talent, but the more subbing she did, the less she got from her talent, and when the opponents got better it began to really fall apart.

 

[packwrap]

I’m genuinely curious what a realistic outlook on next season would even be? Is Tennessee going to have to throw crazy money at players only interested in money? Will they end up with a collection of players who otherwise would have never had the talent to land at such a program? How do you even sell “join our team” when there isn’t a “team.”

I feel like the Month Python character who has his arms and legs chopped off, "just a flesh wound". 😜

If they do indeed go forward with Caldwell and 'the system', the argument will be that the players and assistants were not ideal fits, and this gives a chance for her to start over fresh.

Of course the problem is that with transfers, you never really get ideal fits either...it's more take what's available. It will be a challenge simply to build a roster of 10 SEC caliber players.

Any new coach at this point would face the same challenge, and by keeping Caldwell they save money.

Where I ultimately lost my support of Kim, was she has to take responsibility for assistants she hired, and players she recruited. In current situation year 3 is a washout, and year 4 will be her first year with 'her' recruits, of course 'only freshmen'.

We'll see how fast she can cobble a team of transfers together, as she would still have a nice recruiting budget.