Kim Caldwell and her staff, which included the addition of two new assistant coaches, assembled a team in three weeks and went from a roster of no returning players and one incoming freshman in early April to 13 transfers and another incoming freshman making her way across the pond.

The 15th and final player on the roster committed Wednesday morning, the same day the Big Orange Caravan with Caldwell, Rick Barnes and Josh Heupel stopped in Nashville. It began Tuesday with a stop in Chattanooga and wrapped up Thursday in Kingsport. Caldwell was asked at each stop an assortment of questions.

“The biggest thing is we wanted to recruit heart and people that wanted to work hard and people that knew what was at stake,” Caldwell said. “We really tried to hammer that home in our visits of how hard it was going to be and see if they were up to the challenge, and they all were.”

Gabby Minus, who is from Dacula, Georgia, and signed out of high school last fall, stayed on board even when she was the only one on the 2026-27 roster. By the end of April, she had 14 teammates.

“Gabby was amazing,” Caldwell said. “Every time we talked, ‘I’m all in, I’m all in, I’m all in. This is where I want to be.’ She was great on that end. For it to be a young kid coming out of high school to be unwavering, and when I say she was unwavering, she did not waver one bit. It’s remarkable. Her and Avery Mills, the first ones to the fire so to speak.”

Avery Mills was the first to commit on April 8, two days after the transfer portal opened. Mills, a 5-9 guard, and her family traveled to Knoxville from Lynchburg, Virginia, and it didn’t take long for her to say yes to Tennessee after two seasons at Liberty.

That was followed by 12 more commitments from the portal listed here in alphabetical order. Harissoum Coulibaly, 5-10 guard from Paris, France, via Auburn; Zhen Craft, 6-2 forward from Waldorf, Maryland, via Georgia; Jada Eads, 5-7 guard from Orlando, Florida, via Seton Hall; Kennedy Fauntleroy, 5-7 guard, from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, via East Carolina; Fatmata “Fats” Janneh, 6-2 forward from London, England, via Texas A&M; Riley Makalusky, 6-2 forward from Fishers, Indiana, via West Virginia; Aaliyah Moore, 6-1 forward from Moore, Oklahoma, via Texas; Harper Peterson, 6-3 forward from Rocklin, California, via Stanford; Kaylene Smikle, 6-0 guard from Bay Shore, New York, via Maryland; Shaelyn Steele, 5-6 guard from Ashland, Kentucky, via Penn State; Rylie Theuerkauf, 5-9 guard, from Tenafly, New Jersey, via Georgia; and Naomi White, 5-9 guard from Omaha, Nebraska, via Northern Arizona.

Irene Oboavwoduo, a 5-10 guard from Manchester, United Kingdom, became the second incoming freshman after she committed April 10.

Coach Bill Ferrara, he of the orange emojis in a story that can be read HERE, posted 15 oranges April 28 with the words: It is finished.

Considering where Tennessee started April with all eight returning players headed to the portal and a top five freshman recruit who was granted her release from Tennessee, it’s rather remarkable the coaches were able to max out the roster at 15.

“We had to do it quickly,” Caldwell said. “I am really pleased with the work that we put in over three weeks. We wanted to make sure that we constructed our roster in a way that balanced each other, that we had players that could fit in multiple roles and could shoot the ball.”

The caravan ended Thursday evening in upper East Tennessee, and Caldwell said a full analysis of the past season – a tough one for all involved – and what went wrong will occur for her over the next several months.

“I think that is a really in-depth answer that I hopefully we’ll have a better answer to you at the end of the summer, when you can really go back and look,” Caldwell said. “I haven’t had a lot of time to reflect even on the past season. We’ve been hitting the ground running. This is kind of a nice little bow at the end of a really long month for us.

“Doing a deep dive, I think that resilience is something I was proud of and being able to keep your head up high and, again, trying to continue to learn about the mistakes on the floor, off the floor, all around will be a summer-long evaluation for me.”

SOFTBALL

The Lady Vols are wrapping up the regular season on the road with a three-game series at Missouri and won the opener 3-1 on Thursday night after a rain delay. Karlyn Pickens entered in relief in the first inning with the bases loaded and two outs after Sage Mardjetko struggled early with her control. Pickens threw 101 pitches and struck out nine to improve her record to 13-6.

Tennessee got on the scoreboard in the top of fifth inning after Elsa Morrison singled up the middle. Saviya Morgan entered as a pinch runner, Sophia Knight reached on a fielding error to put two on base, and a sacrifice bunt by Bella Faw move both runners up a base. Mackenzie Butt entered as pinch hitter and singled up the middle to bring both runners home.

A homer by Alannah Leach to deep center made it 3-0 in the top of the sixth. Missouri homered in the bottom of the inning for a 3-1 score, and Pickens got a groundout and strikeout to end the inning. With runners on second and third for Missouri with one out in the seventh, Pickens got a strikeout and a groundout to end the game.

Tennessee (41-8, 15-7) will play Missouri today, May 1, at 7 p.m. Eastern with a livestream on SECN+. The regular season finale is set for Saturday, May 2, at 1 p.m. Eastern with the television broadcast on SEC Network.

“I hope everybody on our team appreciates not just Karlyn, but all of our pitchers and the way they have the ability to take it into that extra gear, not let anything behind them bother them, and just fight for their team,” coach Karen Weekly said. On the road, you don’t want to let them get up on you that early and bases loaded there, things can get out of hand. (Mardjetko) was struggling to make the adjustment to get the pitches in the zone. At that point, it’s like, ‘We can go to Karlyn right here.’ It’s almost like we just flipped our day one and two starters.

“And that’s not been normal for Sage. I  thought there’s something unusual going on. She’s struggling to find the zone. But we’ve got Karlyn Pickens sitting here, so we go Karlyn and we’ve got (Mardjetko) fresh and ready for (Friday).”

The Lady Vols took the series against Alabama this week – an improbable outcome after a shellacking last Saturday – by winning the final two games, including the clincher on Monday that ended with the lighting of cigars on the field. A full story can be read HERE.

A cinematic recap of the series can be watched below.

“These kind of series, it’s an opportunity, because that is a team that’s ranked higher than us, that is having an incredible season, that is going to be a top eight seed, that has an opportunity to win a national championship,” Weekly said.

“So, for us to be able to win two out of three this time of year is big time.”

Maria M. Cornelius, a senior writer/editor at MoxCar Marketing + Communications since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press and a 10th anniversary edition will be released June 16, 2026.