The Lady Vols set for top-10 season opener

The Tennessee Lady Vols tip off season two of the Kim Caldwell era in the RO Greensboro Invitational in Greensboro, North Carolina against ninth-ranked NC State in the popular 4 p.m. ET Tuesday afternoon tip. 

For Caldwell and her staff, it is an early season test with plenty of unknowns. 

“I think the only thing that is good about it, it really locks you in right now, your level of focus, your level of prep,” Caldwell said. “They know that they have to be on their A game. They can’t take anything for granted. They know that if they don’t fix the things we have been talking about, it’s going to cost them game one.”

And that list of things to fix is pretty lengthy for Caldwell and her team.

“I think our turnovers were really bad, and that is one thing that concerns me,” Caldwell said. “I don’t think that that has been fixed in practice (yet). There was quite a bit. I thought fouls was going to be one, but getting back in transition was one where they didn’t necessarily capitalize, but you know that NC State will. Those two things were probably the most eye-opening.

“We gave up 14 offensive rebounds. That’s alarming. We did a pretty good job on the glass, but we should have done a good job on the glass because we had the size. But those things right there and plus the fouls, because I think that will come into play, are going to be really what this game comes down to because it’s both of our first games.”

The other question is, how does this team adjust to not having Ruby Whitehorn, who was dismissed from the program on Sunday following her second arrest since August? 

“We talked about who’s going to step up, who’s going to do what, and we went around the room, and everyone said something. She’s not a player that one player can step up and replace in a matter of a day,” Caldwell said. “So, everyone is going to have to give us more. We’re going to have to get more out of our scorers. We’re going to have to get more out of our role players. We’re going to have to have more leadership. We’re just going to have to have more from everyone, and it’s going to be by committee.”

Like Tennessee, who has nine newcomers, NC State is different after losing its backcourt from last year. 

“It’s just interesting because they’re new, we’re new,” Caldwell offered. “They lost two really dominant guards last year, but they reloaded. They still have talent, and we lost a lot last year, but we still have talent. It’s interesting, your first game of the year, because you think you know, but you don’t really know. There’s no film. You haven’t seen anything. You’ve seen some box scores, and so it will be a lot of learning on the fly for probably both teams.

One player Tennessee will not have to learn about on the fly is Khamil Pierre, who transferred from Vanderbilt. In their first meeting last year, Pierre scored 21 points and went to the free throw line 14 times. When they met again in the SEC Tournament, Pierre had 16 points and 15 rebounds. 

“She’s a beast of an athlete. I’m very disappointed we have to play her again (smiling). She can score from all three levels. She can run. She’s a big that can play at our pace. And we’ve watched a lot of clips of our failure to guard her last season, and we fouled her at the rim. We couldn’t stop her at the elbow. We couldn’t stop her on the three-point line. We couldn’t stop her in transition. So, we’ve watched those clips, and hopefully we can show improvement.”

The game will be televised on ESPN2.