2 years ago to this day, Tennessee hired Kim Caldwell as the new Lady Vols basketball coach.

2 years later, zero players on the roster, transferring to other programs, top recruits decommitting.

Tennessee women’s basketball on fire—Kim Caldwell, alone in an empty gym, smiling after dropping the lit cigarette onto the gasoline she doused the building in.

Why does everyone hate Kim Caldwell?

In her first season, the Lady Vols but the no. 5-ranked UConn Huskies 80-76—Tennessee’s first win over that program since 2007.

We’re so back.

Then the wheels fell off at the end of the month—a 24-blowout loss to Kentucky and bad losses to Georgia and Vanderbilt, limping into the tournament like an Invader Zim gag.

Still good enough for a 5 seed in the big dance—an upset over no. 4 Ohio State and loss in the Sweet 16 to no. 1 Texas.

That’s a decent first year.

Tennessee didn’t make it out of the 2nd round the year prior.

The Sweet 16 is improvement.

Bet.

Then Tennessee, after just one season, decided to give her a raise, up from $750K to $1 million annually through March 31st, 2030—but they added a clause in her contract, making her the highest-paid coach in the nation if she won a national championship.

Dawn Staley is the ceiling with $4 million a year.

She beat UConn on a random Thursday, and Tennessee AD Danny White called her into his office and said, “Win me a chip and I’ll make you rich. Here’s a million up top so you know I’m serious.”

Kim signed the contract and started burning her iPhone battery.

She entered this season with the ESPN ranked no. 1 transfer portal class.

Tennessee lost its first game to No. 9-ranked NC State but rebounded with a quick 6-game win streak—even after one of their starting guards got arrested then transferred to Arizona State—the first of many transfers.

Then they played no. 3 ranked UCLA and no. 16 ranked Louisville and got RAN out of the gym—but stayed 14-3, still projecting as a Top 3 seed in the tourny.

Last February, historic victory over UConn.

This February, they lost by fucking 30.

A week later, they flew into South Carolina—face-to-face with the carrot on the stick she’s been chasing since signing that insane contract—Lady Vols lost by 43.

Following the bludgeoning, Kim Caldwell took to the post-game press conference to say, “I have a team that’ll just quit on you, and you can’t do that in big games” and then, when asked why she believes these games spiral out of control, Kim said “That’s a question for them about why they can’t stick together”.

Naturally, the team ended the season on an 8-game winning streak, and a first-round defeat to the same NC State that beat them day one.

It was as if all those Disney dramas about the coach who saves the program ended with the team just losing by 20, all the players hate each other, no one learned a lesson about teamwork or sacrifice or humility. Roll credits.

The final month of the season, Kim Caldwell tyranny—benching players for “not meeting team standards.”

Benching a 5th-year senior on senior day.

Benching the leading scorer halfway through an SEC tournament game.

Kim was annooooooying.

And now, there is no team.

That being said, I absolutely do not want Kim Caldwell fired. Ever.

Kim Caldwell deserves a lifelong contract

If she creates such visceral reactions—so offputting an entire roster and all incoming players escape through the sewers to freedom—she must be given free rein to see if she can find the exact types of personalities she can coach.

This woman is a disrupter—or just disruptive—but what if is she’s misunderstand.

There are zero players on this team.

Show and prove time.

Find 13 girls she believes she can mold into the master system she pitched at the job interview.

Show the world how you plan of stopping South Carolina and UConn and LSU and Louisville and Minnesota and USC and Notre Dame.

Pat Summitt is one of the most iconic head coaches ever—raised a weird-ass kid—but a GOAT nonetheless.

Tennessee has the next iconic head coach in-house right now.

Peep the resume:

This woman, for the last decade, flipped stepped-on products into market disruptors.

Picked puppies from the pound, turned them pitbulls.

This isn’t lightning in a bottle.

10 years of sustained success at schools with exponentially fewer resources in their women’s basketball programs.

She looks like the cruelest tap dance instructor.

She looks like she runs the local deli like a sweatshop.

We need this villain to handpick her own roster of sycophants, kneeling when she snaps her fingers, picking up full court, slapping the hardwood, running through cement walls when they hear their names.

We need her getting into postgame arguments with Geno Auriemma and Kara Lawson.

OR,

She’s just a repulsive personality who is only capable of maximizing lesser talent against weaker conferences—girls who were good in high school, just happy they get to continue playing basketball at a high-ish level—willing to do whatever nonsense Kim Caldwell asks of them.

Either way, Tennessee basketball under Kim Caldwell is the most interesting program in college.

Netflix should be following her around with cameras starting yesterday.

 

 

 

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