Monday night begins the regular season for Kim Caldwell and Tennessee Lady Vols basketball. Caldwell enters her third season in Knoxville with a team that is capable of lighting up the scoreboard. The Lady Vols will host the Duquesne Dukes at 6:30 p.m. ET at Food City Center.

The game will stream on SECN+ with Cruz Martin (play-by-play) and Genesis Bryant (analyst) on the call. SECN+ is included in the ESPN package available through WatchESPN, accessible online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app, and streamed on televisions through Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360 or Xbox One to fans who receive their video subscription from an affiliated provider.

The Dukes are led by head coach Dan Burt, who is entering his 14th season at the helm. Burt is the all-time winningest coach in Duquesne history.

Redshirt junior Gabby Grantham-Medley is the Dukes’ leading returning scorer after averaging 7.3 points and 3.9 rebounds per game last season, and she also led the team in assists. Duquesne added scoring help through the transfer portal. 

Guard De’Naya Rippey arrives from Saint Peter’s, where she averaged 13.4 points and 8.0 rebounds per game as a sophomore and earned All-MAAC Third Team honors. Senior guard Carla Viegas comes over from Pitt after ranking fourth in the ACC in 3-pointers made per game last season, finishing with 70 made triples.

Tennessee gave everyone a look in its only exhibition against Florida A&M Tuesday, Oct. 27. The Lady Vols defeated the Rattlers 132-63, and eight players scored in double figures. Kaylene Smikle led the way with 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting, 2-of-7 from 3-point range and 3-of-4 from the free-throw line. 

Naomi White was close behind and put together a complete performance with a stuffed statsheet. She finished with 16 points, a team-high seven assists, six rebounds and four steals in 20 minutes.

“For me, it was really a blessing to just be out there,” White said. “It was a very surreal moment for me. I’ve always dreamed of playing in the SEC, playing at a higher level.

“So just being out there with this group of girls and then having Coach Kim as my coach, she’s very great. I love her. She’s great, and she’s very understanding of a lot of things, and she just helped us get better. And like Jada [Eads] said, people are coming off injuries, and it was just great to see them out there for the first time in a long time.”

After the exhibition, Caldwell was honest about what areas her team needed to sharpen up. That gives the team something to do better on Monday night, and something for spectators to watch for.

“We need to clean up our half-court defense,” Caldwell said. “We’ve talked a lot through our scrimmage about knowing your personnel. We let their shooters have too many wide-open threes. We helped up too much right under the rim. Our scrambles on the back end once the press was broken need to be cleaned up.

“All of those things were pretty eye-opening. And we talked midgame about sharing the ball more on offense. I think early we were just shooting whatever the first shot was, and that’s not going to hold throughout the season. I think they did a really good job in real time of trying to do the right thing, making the right pass and swinging the ball sideline to sideline a little bit more.”

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