The hype surrounding the speed and intensity is both very real and, as Kim Caldwell’s team said during media day, as advertised.

When Caldwell first entered Tennessee as the school’s fifth head coach, the immediate dialogue surrounding her hire focused on the quick-paced offense and frequent substitutions, but what some don’t see is the preparation and work required for players to find consistent success in the system.

An aspect of learning the system that can go unnoticed is the amount of both mental and physical buy-in each player needs to find a consistent role in the ever-changing rotation.

“The mental side of it is there on purpose,” Caldwell said. “We want to get over the hump, make people stronger, and the only way to make people stronger is to put them in tough situations, have them fight their way out.”

Caldwell has five returning players, four of whom saw time on the court all the way until the Sweet 16 matchup against Texas.

“Comfort doesn’t do you any good in life,” Caldwell said. “You have to uncomfortably grow, and that’s something we try to do every year right around this time, and hopefully they’re seeing improvement too.”

It’s not an easy thing to reset the culture of a university with this stature in a span of less than two seasons, but Caldwell is making it a point that this system isn’t something to be reckoned with.

Caldwell, along with assistant coach Gabe Lazo, has been challenging for growth on both the mental and physical fronts for all the second-year players, such as guard Talaysia Cooper.

“There’s been tremendous growth mentally,” Caldwell said. “They’re working on their next play mentality, they’re working on being leaders, working on talking. Also, their on-court skill set has gotten better.”

Cooper joined the team last season for Caldwell’s first season and took off under the new offense. She finished the season with 16.6 points on 45% shooting from the field. Despite the big year, there are still more steps to be taken by the redshirt junior.

“It was kind of hard at first, but it was easy to get on, and I could see where they were going,” Cooper said. “Being that leader, just talking them through it all and knowing what our standards are here, and being that, not a vocal leader, but leading by example.”

Cooper was named to the SEC Preseason Watch List on Oct. 13, earning a second-team nomination.

“The one thing I will say, they can’t say they came in prepared, because they didn’t,” Cooper said. “They don’t know what’s going to hit them, and I can’t say I was prepared for it either; it’s just something that you’ve got to want, and come in and work every day.”

Just because they weren’t prepared then doesn’t mean the returning players have all found solace in their experience.

Yet the system, while having its benefits, is also designed to make all the players work to the max of their abilities. Sometimes the preparation goes as far as preparing to prepare.

“You have to condition and get your body prepared to be able to play fast,” Lazo said. “Everybody wants to play fast, but they don’t want to do what it takes to play fast. So when you’re here with coach Kim and our staff, we’re going to get into shape.”

Besides Cooper, one of the most seasoned players on the roster is redshirt senior Kaiya Wynn. While this will be her first season on the court with Caldwell, she had the chance to learn the feel while recovering from an Achilles injury.

“We have really good leaders within our returners,” Wynn said. “So they were able to explain the way of the system to the newcomers and the transfers.”

The Lady Vols have eight players on the roster who either transferred in or are true freshmen. There’s an excitement for Caldwell to get her first official recruiting class on the court, but they still need to grow accustomed to the speed of it all.

“What we do is not easy, it’s very difficult,” junior Alyssa Latham said. “But you have to come with the mindset that you’re going to push through mentally and everything else will follow.”

The frontcourt is seeing an addition of a big-time transfer in Janiah Barker, but also sees the return of Latham and Zee Spearman.

Guard or forward, the intensity for the system stays the same.

“We enter practice the same every day, the intensity,” Spearman said. “So it’s like when we go on the court, we’re used to it, it becomes a normal thing out of our routine. We need to play fast. We already know coach Kim’s system. So when we get in here, we all try to bring our effort to everything going on the court.”

While the dynamic from last year’s team to this year’s is different, the benefit of familiarity is already bleeding through. In one game of exhibition action, the Lady Vols dropped a record of 148 points amidst a 100-point victory over Columbus State.

The game featured the same high-intensity system that every player had discussed, but now featured some new faces that added a newfound energy to the court.

“It’s a completely different team, but they really catch on very quickly,” Spearman said. “It comes with how much they want to win and how much urgency they all have. So they are all willing to learn it really fast.”

In order to play fast, they also have to learn fast. Having these five returning voices only smooths out the preparation for freshmen such as Mia and Mya Pauldo, Jaida Civil, and Deniya Prawl, all of whom are expected to take on roles despite being true freshmen.

“I think it helps when you have all these returners that get it, that can figure it out, that can really set the tempo and push the pace to remind people when things get hard,” Caldwell said. “That’s made my job as a coach easier, and it’s made practices move seamlessly.”

Cooper saw her game elevate as she spent more time under the Caldwell system. Therefore, she understands as well as the rest what the expectation is now for season two of Caldwell.

An underrated aspect of having someone like Cooper to mentor guards like the Pauldo’s, who have the chance to thrive in the system as true freshmen, is that they can be reminded there’s proof within the process.

“Even mentally, it’s a fast-paced basketball,” Cooper said. “Getting up in press, getting paint touch scoring, getting the ball out quick, that can take it mentally because sometimes things aren’t going to go your way, and you have to be mentally able to push through that and know what the standard is.”