Lady Vols' Caldwell: Goal was to make Sweet 16

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Kim Caldwell was hired nearly one year ago to be the coach at Tennessee, where she set a goal right away.

"My goal was to make it to the Sweet 16," she said Friday.

Though she had no Power 4 experience and a unique style of play not many elite programs play -- a fast-paced offense and press defense -- Caldwell embraced expectations to get Tennessee back to competing for championships right away. There is no other option in Knoxville.

Her players did, too. Caldwell said Friday her team is playing its best basketball of the season headed into a rematch with Texas in the Sweet 16 on Saturday, and nobody is ready for her first year on the job to end quite yet.

What a year it has been for Caldwell, who was hired last April, then learned she was pregnant, gave birth to a baby boy in January, returned to work a week later and has the Lady Vols back in a familiar spot in the Sweet 16.

"I'm just thankful and grateful to be the head coach of this program. It was something I could not wrap my head around until about right now," Caldwell said. "To want a baby your whole life and then God gives it to you right as you're the most stressed you have ever been and you are, like, 'Oh, we're doing this now?' Your eyes are wide open, and you're coaching pregnant, and then you're coaching in postpartum. Now that we're kind of through it and we have a routine, I think God knew exactly what he was doing.

"It's been an amazing ride, and I hope we can keep it going for as long as we can because I'm not quite ready to stop coaching these players yet."

It also just so happens she is back in a city where she won a Division II national championship at Glenville State in 2022 employing the same style some doubted would work on the Power 4 level. Indeed, her seven-year stint at Glenville State got her hired for her first Division I job at Marshall in 2023, where she delivered one of the best seasons in school history.

That got the attention of Tennessee athletic director Danny White, who hired Caldwell to replace Kellie Harper to shake up the direction of the program and get the Lady Vols back to national relevancy. Harper did make it to the Sweet 16 in 2022 and 2023, but Tennessee has not moved to the Elite Eight since 2016.

"I definitely feel like when she came in, that we would get back here," Tennessee forward Sara Puckett said. "I've been to the Sweet 16. It's my third time now, and I've never been past it. I didn't go past it in high school. So I'd really love to go past it. We trusted our coaching staff whenever they came in with what they wanted to do, and they knew what we wanted to do as well. And now we're here."

Assistant Angel Rizor, who has been with Caldwell since Glenville State, said watching Caldwell have her son, Conor, and return to the team a week later showed her commitment to what she set out to do this season.

"It's a lot to ask of a person, but she's up for the task," Rizor said. "She said, 'I love my baby Conor, but I'm here to win for Tennessee, and so she had that baby, and she came back to work. You don't find people like that every day."

Tennessee dropped three of its final four games, earning a No. 5 seed heading into the NCAA tournament. But the Lady Vols went to Ohio State and upset the No. 4 seed Buckeyes 82-67 to get another shot at Texas. Caldwell was not on the sideline the first time they played in January after giving birth. Tennessee lost 80-76.

Now the Lady Vols get another shot with Caldwell on the sideline.

"Something we've wanted all year was to be a Top 10 team in the country," Caldwell said. "We got to 11, and then we kind of fell apart a little bit. It would be a nice story line that, hey, 'We did it at the right time.' I don't know if we can do it or not, but to be in the top 8 would be great. We have an opportunity to play for that."

Tennessee, though, is a program that always wants more.

"We are here to win, and we're proud of being here at the Sweet 16, but we know that this is only just a foundation," Rizor said. "We know that we have to do so much more to get to where we want to get. There are some doubters out there that didn't believe that we could do this. So this says, 'Yeah, we're new but we're not here to play games. We're here to compete for a national championship."