Tennessee head coach Kim Caldwell and her 2025-26 team put a bow on what went down in the history books as one of the worst seasons in Lady Vols basketball history.
Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell and her 2025-26 team put a bow on what went down in the history books as one of the worst seasons in Lady Vols basketball history.
The trends to end the season spoke for themselves. Since Jan. 29, the Lady Vols had lost 11 of their final 13 games and ended the season on an eight-game losing streak.
The final game of the season came in the form of a rematch against NC State, the same team the Lady Vols opened the season with a neutral-site loss to.
“Not the game we wanted, really not the season we wanted, but it doesn’t really help us to get into that right now,” Caldwell said.
The season was split into two halves. After a big two-point win at home over Kentucky, which moved the Lady Vols' season record to a strong 14-3 and undefeated conference record of 6-0, the team entered a losing skid.
Whether it was injuries or team drama, such as Senior Janiah Barker missing the Oklahoma contest on Feb. 22 due to “not meeting team standards,” it was clear that the previous energy had shifted.
“I tried to get at that last time I was up here, but you can’t play this style of play and put in a Plan B, and we put in a Plan B,” Caldwell said. “I think when you do that, you lose your identity. You lose your buy-in, you lose your staff a little bit. There’s falter from the top. That’s from me, and I did that in the middle of the season. I know better than to do that, and it was the worst year of my professional career. Our players deserved better than that from me, and you learn from that going forward.”
The postseason, so far, has been negative. Already, Alyssa Latham, who just finished her junior season, has said she will enter the transfer portal. Likewise, freshman McDonald's All-American Deniya Prawl has announced she will be leaving.
It's still early. Others may follow.
The Lady Vols' leading average scorer on the season was redshirt-junior Talaysia Cooper, who finished the year with 16.0 points per game. The story for Cooper comes in postseason play.
As a team, the Lady Vols made history as for the first time in school history, the team had finished their month of March with no wins, but Cooper faced struggles of her own as well.
During the second-half against Alabama in the second-round of the SEC Tournament, Cooper was benched. She finished that game with a season-low four points.
She rebounded with 24 points in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, but similar issues to the rest of the season continued to rise.
Aside from Cooper, only Zee Spearman saw her point total reach double digits as she finished with 10.
Barker once again missed the game, this time due to an illness. The absence of their senior forward played a part in the loss.
“Yeah, that hurt in the zone,” Caldwell said. “I think she’s really good in the zone for us, really good at the high post. She can play multiple spots. She rebounds really well, so that was tough.”
The freshman class struggled to find its footing as well. Mia Pauldo was the team’s best performer but saw a drop in production after being injured against South Carolina in late February.
It was a year full of records, but not the kind Caldwell was hoping for entering her second full season of work. Now the goal becomes roster retention and reshaping, as a big offseason awaits the program.
“I think that this world is kind of crazy. We'll meet when we get back, and we’ll forget who wants to stay,” Caldwell said. “What we’re going to do, and I think the portal, we have a little while before it opens to get there, but it’s just going to continue to be crazier and crazier every year.”