Lady Vols get No. 5 seed in NCAA Tournament
For the 43rd consecutive time, the Tennessee Lady Vols will play in the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA women’s tournament started in 1982 and the Lady Vol program is the only program to play in ever tournament.
Kim Caldwell’s first Tennessee team is a #5 seed in the Birmingham, Alabama region and will travel to Ohio State where they will play 12th-seed South Florida in the opening round on Friday. If the Lady Vols win their opening game then they would get the winner of Ohio State and Montana State.
The Lady Vols will enter the tournament 22-9, but losers of three of their last four games. Tennessee went 1-1 in the SEC tournament routing Texas A&M in the tournament opener and falling to Vanderbilt 84-76 in the quarterfinals.
“It’s been a really disappointing last week and a half,” Caldwell said after the Vanderbilt loss in the SEC Tournament. I don’t think we have played well. Even in some of the games we won we haven’t played well. We need to rest and get healthy and get back to it.”
Caldwell said her team needed a reset noting that she should have managed the end of the season better.
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“I think we need rest. I don’t think we have really handled our load the way we should have in hindsight,” Caldwell said. “I think we are tired. We need rest, get healthy and get a reset.”
That reset starts on the defensive end of the floor where the head coach is looking for more consistency with her team. The first year coach has repeatedly pointed out that her team needs to do a better job of not letting offensive affect how they play on the defensive end of the floor.
“It’s human nature with young people. It’s hard. It’s growth, it’s leadership and that’s just continuing to show them on film that you can put 15 points together in 3 minutes so don’t look at the scoreboard,” Caldwell said. “Don’t get down on yourself. I think that comes from experience.”
The Lady Vols are 4-1 on the season in neutral site games and they are 5-4 on the year in true road games.
