Kellie Harper previews Lady Vols’ basketball ahead of season opener

Tennessee opens the 2020-21 season Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena.

On if she thinks they will be a better inside scoring team this season:
“I believe so. I think Kasi (Kushkituah) and Tamari (Key) are both better. I think adding Keyen (Green) will really help that, and then you get players like Jaiden (McCoy) and Marta (Suarez), and we can even move some wings now that we’ve got a little more depth on the perimeter; we can play four guards if we need to.”

On how hard it was to put together a non-conference schedule this season on a scale of one to 10:
“You said one to 10? Ten. It was really difficult. We had our non-conference schedule done going into this summer and things change. We had tournaments dropped, teams dropped us, and it was just so many moving parts. They were daily. I would get an update in the morning, another update in the afternoon. Things were changing that drastically. It was very frustrating, so to finally have a schedule, it felt so good to be able to go to our team and say this is who we’re playing, and this is when we’re playing them.”

On how Kasiyahna Kushkituah has improved over the offseason:
“I think it’s been a big summer for her. She has intentionally worked on her leadership, her presence, her confidence, and herself. She has really improved in a lot of areas. Like I said, that leadership and that confidence is going to carry over to the court. Our players look to her, especially the post players. She’s been very consistent on the court for us, and that’s important. She’s been a great presence for us.”