COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Lady Vols are dancing their way to the Round of 32.

A day after 5-seed Tennessee defeated 12-seed South Florida, coach Kim Caldwell and players Jewel Spear and Tess Darby met with the media.

Here's what they said ahead of Sunday's clash with 4-seed Ohio State.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM

Q. Both you and Ohio State employ presses. Can you compare and contrast the differences between your press that you bring and the press that you see from Ohio State?

KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, I think it's very similar, very similar type of systems if you want to apply pressure and you want to play in transition. I think theirs is more of a zone look where they are matched up and ours is more of a man look.

Q. You have players who came over from last year, how do you leverage their experience in preparing for a team like Ohio State?

KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, we always ask, that's the first thing I'll always do going into playing an opponent is ask what we know about that team; and listen to what they say, whether they have played them or watched them on TV.

Q. How important is it to take momentum from that first tournament game, especially with how the regular season tournament went and the two-week layoff?

KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, I think it's important. It was a good step for our program. We were hitting shots. It was good to see the ball go in, and hopefully we can do it again. I'm thankful for the day in between.

Q. We noticed how loud the Ohio State state crowd was. How do you keep that energy you felt last night into the crowd?

KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, we talked about that. It's just going to be us, and we are very lucky and blessed to be part of a program that has a good fan base, a fan base that travels.

But we are definitely on the road. Making sure that we keep our bench energy up, and our huddles tight, and we stay focussed when Ohio State goes on a run. They are going to go on a run. It's going to be streaky, and you can't too high or too low.

When you have a fan base that's loud and passionate you have to lock in and just look at your teammates in the eye and play through those runs.

Q. Is there anything you saw in the team last night in the way that they were playing or interacting with each other that gave you confidence about where they are going into tomorrow's matchup?

KIM CALDWELL: I think we had fun. I think we were sharing the ball a little bit better than we had been. We had more assists and played through mistakes a little bit better. Our next-play mentality was an improvement of what we have had probably the back half of the season.

But again, you have to see what it's like when you're in the middle of a run of another team and the crowd is into it and see how tough you are then.

Q. You touched on the substitution pattern a little bit last night. Just want to ask about that. Is this something that you had developed over time in your coaching career? And I guess the first important ingredient is you have to have ten people who are capable of playing to be able to pull that off, but just your thought about how this team has taken to it, and maybe how you developed it, I guess.

KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, I've always done it, and you have to have 10 or 11 players that you trust, and that's a big step for a coach is to have everyone accept their roles and lean into their roles and trust them and put them on the floor every night.

Q. Jewel mentioned last night that the team followed the scouting report, and I know that's a pretty obvious thing to do, but you've indicated this team doesn't always do it. You had to re-present the scouting report at Florida. I assume your fifth-year seniors are perfectly capable at this point of following one, but how do you get the team all on board to do so, because it obviously makes such a big difference if all five on the floor are on the same page.

KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, you have to talk and be locked in, and it has to mean more. Again, it's going to be to do on the road, and it's always hard to do when you are playing 11 players. Because we scramble so much out of our press that you are not always matched up with who you should be matched up with.

So you just have to know actions and how to guard actions. We are late in the year. We have one-day prep going into this game. We're not really going to be able to learn new habits. So you have to rely on the way we have guarded actions all year.

Q. How have you even over the final stretch of the regular season where there were tough results, how have you seen the team come together and bond and have that result that you had last night that was a lopsided win for you all?

KIM CALDWELL: It's great but you can't have a win like that and see a win like that and pat yourself on the back and think it's done. Maybe that's a mistake we made earlier. We have to continue to work on our team chemistry. We have to continue to work hard when the shots are not falling. We have to continue to play through things. I think that's what's it's going to take to be successful in March.

Yeah, we have done it once, but we have to do it again.

Q. This team was on the upward trajectory of building, building, building and hit that stretch at the end of the season last night, looking more like where you picked up where you left off before that. How confident are you that this team is where they need to be right now and what helped them get right back to that?

KIM CALDWELL: I'm confident that our energy is better. I'm confident that our focus is better. I think that we have a better mindset coming into this game.

But again, kind of like I just said, I'm not going to be overly confident and think that I can take my foot off the gas as a coach just walking into this opponent that, okay, we are back to where we used to be. We have to continue to work through things.

Q. I want to ask about Ohio State. They had a couple of the better players in the Big Ten this year with Cotie McMahon who has been a real good contributor for three years and Cambridge, the freshman. Your thoughts about both those players and how they like to attack opponents. You probably don't want to give away the scouting report, but the things you need to do to keep them under wraps of the?

KIM CALDWELL: Yeah, you've got to keep them in front of you. It's a stacked roster. We have to play team defense. I don't think we are going to be able to guard one-on-one in those position.

So just making sure we all locked in and playing together and we are not letting them have easy shots. I think that's one thing we've talked about is we can't give them anything wide open, and sometimes in our defense, we'll do that. We'll just stand there and look and hope the other team misses, and you can't do that at this point in the year.

Q. Your team has done well in this season against other defensive-minded teams. Why do you think that was and will it help you tomorrow?

KIM CALDWELL: I don't think that that necessarily applies for this game. I think the slower teams, the teams that spend the majority of their time sitting down on the halfcourt guarding don't spend as much time on offense. I think that's a little bit better for us. I think this team can go in transition, so it's not necessarily a matchup that I love.

Q. Players have talked about how they really feed energy off of the only team losing their energy, and how whenever you are seeing shots miss that they are getting more hyped up for the game, and that's when you see the runs like second quarter last night. Ohio State is really well-conditioned, too. What do you tell the team when the other side is not getting as tired as they are expecting them to be?

KIM CALDWELL: That's when you have to sit down and get stops. You have to play defense. You can't just hope -- that's what I just said. You can't look at them and hope the ball doesn't go in. You have to actually guard now.

So that's something we have to work on is get the stops. And I think stops for us are going to be really important, and that way maybe they are not going to be as quick as they get into their pressure. We are going to have to sit down and actually guard.

Q. With the sitting-down-and-actually-guarding, you talked about how you worked on halfcourt defense during the two-week break. What did you like about that and what needs to change going into this game tomorrow?

KIM CALDWELL: I thought we played with a sense of urgency yesterday in the halfcourt. Even when we had a big lead, something we have done all year is just kind of stopped guarding just because we saw a 20-point win. And we continue to sit down and guard to the final minute, and that was a really big improvement for us.

Again it's going to be very similar, a really good offensive-minded team. They run really good, as. They are a very deep roster. They have great players. So just having the discipline to sit down and guard.

Q. I know motivation, win-or-go-home, that's in place already. But the tip times in the tournament can be anywhere from noon to 8:00 or 9:00 PM. What's your approach to a team in a big game like this waiting all day to play? How do you manage that? Because teams get restless sometimes.

KIM CALDWELL: I think the only thing that helps us is we just had the exact same time slot. So our game day is going to be pretty much identical to what we just did, and that's in our favor. We watch a little more film, and we take a little more time to stretch. We try to keep them in and out of their hotel rooms and we try to keep the energy high.

But if you are not locked in and you get rest unless March, it's probably going to be a quick March for you.

Q. Avery had really good minutes for you last night. What did she show you over the last two weeks to earn those minutes?

KIM CALDWELL: She has consistently worked all year. She's always in the gym extra. So she'll hard in practice but she'll always be in the gym extra. She's a little spark for us runs around, plays hard. She doesn't necessarily do anything that hurts you us. She doesn't take bad shots. She's a selfless player, and you can put her on the floor knowing she's going to give it everything she has.

Q. You both have played Ohio State. What is it about getting the chance to come back to Columbus and face them, especially after last year, and having them handily beat your side on your own court?

JEWEL SPEAR: Yeah, I think it's a great opportunity. We know they are a great team coming into this matchup so we are going to focus on what we can control this year, as opposed to last year, and knowing their system is a lot of pressure but we like to press a lot, as well. So seeing those two dynamics, and going out there, having fun and competing.

Q. How much has Coach leveraged the two of you, because you played against Ohio State last year and you played against a different style press from your press with a lot of similarities. How much has she leveraged your experience preparing for tomorrow's game?

TESS DARBY: I don't think we've talked about it much, just knowing our style of play compared to theirs is going to be very fast-paced and aggressive, and just coming in and knowing what we do.

Q. Feels like Coach, with her winning pedigree is coming in trying to put Tennessee back to where Coach Summitt had it a couple years ago. What does it feel like for you as players that are still with the program everything and, the idea that Tennessee is on that kind of an up swing and you want to put it back where it was, I guess?

JEWEL SPEAR: I think it's special. That's what we talked about when coach Kim came in this summer for the first time. That's what we talked about, our team goals are individual goals and we talked about we didn't want this year to be a year where we rebuild. We want it now.

You see it now with us competing for a spot and a chance to be in the Sweet 16. I think it just speaks to her and her culture and also us, the people that came back and the transfers that came in, us having a common goal.

TESS DARBY: I think it speaks volumes, just like we decided we want to stay and Coaching coming in and she wants to win now; that, and leaving the program better than we found it is something we have both talked about and we can kind of hang our hats on.

Q. The substitution pattern she uses, five in, five out, pretty consistent every couple minutes or thereabouts, first time I've seen it in action in person is last night. As players that played in a different system, how effective has it been and what are the pluses of doing it this way that you always have five fresh people on the court, and everybody knows their role? Just what has this been like for you guys?

TESS DARBY: I love it. I think it's really fun, last night, whenever you have five in and five out and you're coming in and we're feeding energy and playing off each other. It's honestly better whenever you see the other team getting so tired and they have no more bodies and subs left. That's where we get more energy, and it's like, let's go, keep going.

JEWEL SPEAR: I'd say it's actually very fun, like Tess just said, feeding off each other, five in, five out, and having energy on the bench, the bench energy providing energy for the people that are on the court and vice versa.

I think it's really important, and I think that it just shows the depth that we have on our team; that we have multiple people that can score and shoot threes and make plays, and it makes us harder to guard.

Q. Yesterday you were well rested after a tough spell to end the regular season. How much did that tough spell bring your team closer together and have such a dominant performance yesterday?

JEWEL SPEAR: I think it forced us to get on the same page. When you go through adversity, you have to get closer. You can't go further apart because then it makes things harder. I think it forced us to get closer, and I think we did get closer during that time. We got rested and we got this new spirit of energy. With having a lot of seniors on our team, we know this is our last go around, so just giving all we have, and our team is doing the same as well.

Q. I don't know how much you all got into watching video stuff with the game so late tomorrow, but what are the differences that you see, and you played against it, too, between your press and Ohio State's press?

TESS DARBY: I would say obviously their's is a 2-2-1 and ours is run-and-jump at all cost. That different style.

But I don't know, we see presses, literally all day every day because we are practicing against each other.

JEWEL SPEAR: Exactly what Tess said. We practice with each other. Just getting that familiarity with that. But Ohio State has a unique press that we're going to be prepared for. I think it going to be a really fast-paced game. That's what we expect with both teams pressing each other.

Q. You mentioned last night that the team followed the scouting report, and I know coach Kim has talked about at Florida at halftime, we basically have to go over the entire scouting report again.

You both are fifth-year seniors. I don't think the issue is seniors not following the scouting report, but how do you get the team to buy in to a scouting report? Because you're right it, makes a huge difference when everybody, the five on the floor, are on the same page?

JEWEL SPEAR: Yeah, it's huge. At USF last night, we knew they had a lot of plays and they ran a lot of sets and we knew they might have put in a new set. When you communicate and you know how to guard actions, it makes things a lot easier. So I think that just speaks to us in practices, like when you have a short turnaround, us preparing for Ohio State, you have to pay attention to the little details you don't think makes a difference but it really does. So making sure the younger players know that, or the people that this is their first NCAA Tournament, making sure they hone in on that; and what we get to the time, we make sure that it translates.

Q. If Tess can weigh in on that as a senior; and Kim was talking last night about how competitive Darby is on the floor and they will do anything to win in practice. Growing up, who was the most competitive sister, and did it sometimes get kind of spicy between the two of you?

TESS DARBY: So definitely answering your first question, scouting report is huge. I think that's just an extra few points every now and then that we can get, just knowing what personnel and teams do. But being confident in what we do and knowing we practice it, and I think when you're confident, it translates to the floor.

Edie is a very, very competitive player and person. She always wants to win. And yes, things did get spicy a few times, just in the yard, in the driveway playing. We had to call quits to a couple games. But I think that's a good trait to have.

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