Barnes discussed the play of John Fulkerson and Victor Bailey Jr., preparing for South Carolina with uncertainty regarding who may miss due to COVID, the health of Josiah-Jordan James, South Carolina’s success early on from the three-point line and much more. Here’s everything Barnes had to say following the game:
On the play of John Fulkerson and Victor Bailey Jr.:
“The last couple days in practice we were short guys. Just kept talking to guys about, hey, you have to get yourself involved some. We can only do so much from a coaching staff standpoint. Our offense since Fulky has been here hasn’t changed a whole lot. If it has changed some, it’s because we’ve added to take advantage of some other talent. Otherwise, his position hasn’t changed that much. We just said hey, you’re going to have to do it. I thought he did the best job of running tonight that he’s done all year. He really ran the floor hard. I still think he has to play quicker in the post. He’s wanting to catch it and spin and do this. He’s not going to get time to do that unless he really does his work early. And VJ, I think the last two days, Santi (Vescovi) wasn’t able to practice so those three worked together. I thought it probably helped VJ as much as anyone, just the last two days really just playing the point, understanding what we want him to do. I thought he just did a really good job with it.”
On what it was like to prepare for South Carolina with the uncertainty surrounding COVID:
“We knew regardless of whatever the test results came back, we had to play by rule. We knew two days ago that Josiah (Jordan James) wasn’t going to be able to play. So we went about it. Santi hasn’t practiced. He hadn’t practiced until shoot around today. We hadn’t really done anything, that much today. But we had three guys that didn’t get to practice. So we went about practice with the guys we had. We tried to do some different things. We obviously knew that we were going to get Ticket (Davonte Gaines) in early in the game tonight. We were going to get Olivier (Nkamhoua) in if we could. We just decided whatever we got, we’ve got to go play. That’s how we went about practice the last couple days.”
On the wrist injury Josiah-Jordan James:
“I think he’s OK. I mean, we think he’ll be back Saturday. We’ll know more (later), but we think he will be.”
On the play of Victor Bailey Jr.:
“Sometimes when a player stops thinking about making shots and just playing, getting involved, let the ball spin around and get back to him some, just get the offense going and try to get lost defensively, it just happens for you. He had a few defensive breakdowns tonight. A big one out of a timeout that, when I took him out. And I think he was tired a little bit. Players go through the ups and downs. I think we’ve seen more of that this year. I think there’s a lot of inconsistency for a lot of different reasons. There’s nothing normal that any of us are doing. I can only imagine what South Carolina has gone through here the last couple days and what they went through back earlier in the year. It’s just one of those years where there’s no consistency with a lot of things, and in some ways it rubs off on players.”
On how important it was for Victor Bailey Jr. to keep shooting through his struggles:
“All we really ask these guys is do what you do. Do it a high level. Don’t think you need to do more than you need to do. Just trust each other, play with each other. Just play to your strengths. Don’t try to overdo it. Understand the game. I think he and Keon (Johnson) and Jaden (Springer), even Santi, they’ve got to adjust to changing defenses throughout the game. Changing team to team, how everybody is going to play you a little bit different. But overall, throughout many years of coaching, I’ve seen guys go through periods like this through the year. Very few of them can maintain it all the way through. Like I told them tonight after the game, now is the time we have to get consistent. Let’s see if we can do it. On both ends. We’re getting down toward the end of the regular season, so we just need to see if we can just get consistent.”
On why South Carolina was able to find success from the 3-point line early on:
“Well, the scouting report was some of it, but off of our scouting report we gave up three in the early parts of the game because we didn’t execute our scouting report. It was plain and simple, and they made it. Those guys are capable of making them. We tell out guys all the time that we’re going to play some drive-first guys, but even that, anybody at this level can make a shot. We weren’t closing out with a hand up and we just letting guys stand out there like they were playing HORSE. Our ball pressure wasn’t very good early in the game. I thought they were very comfortable on the offensive end doing what they were doing. Second half, I thought we did a little better job guarding the ball and trying to let them feel us a little bit more. And they were down some guys. There’s no doubt that fatigue could have set in because they were down two key guys, and that hurts anytime. Then Lawson got two fouls in the first half. I think Frank does a great job. I don’t know if anybody has had a tougher year than he’s had, but it is what it is. Like I said, in the first half they made the shots. I could tell you the last time that we went out, we had wide open shots that we made in the first half and in the second half we couldn’t make one. That’s just the game of basketball.”
On if he thinks Tennessee is turning a corner on offense:
“If we don’t turn the ball over like we did. We had some really bad turnovers in the second half, and again, they had something to do with some of them, but some of them they don’t where we just throw uncatchable passes and trying to scoop the ball in tight quarters. Santi cut in, and Jaden saw it, but he just threw a bullet pass at him, and Santi has good hands, but it was a really hard pass. It’s those things that we have to clean up. We have to continue to get guys like Yves, he has to continue to be even more of an aggressive rebounder. And Fulky. But we have to get out and go. It’s important that we do that, and tonight, they were mixing it up between man and zone, and we just kept going at them and we were able to get some of those transition baskets. We’re no different than any team in the country. We need those baskets. I think every team in the country needs them. They got some on us, too, because transition defense is a really tough defense to teach and get guys to execute, especially when there is some cross-switching going on. Like, our point guard has to understand that he is the man back, and he can’t let anybody get behind him. We let that happen twice I know for sure tonight that I remember, and they scored out of it or got fouled.”
On what he thought about the play of Yves Pons and John Fulkerson:
“We need both of them to be aggressive, and it’s that simple. And that’s not just offensively, we need them to be aggressive defensively, we need them rebounding for us. That’s two-thirds of our front line most nights. Offensively, if they want to get involved, they’re going to have to get involved. I can tell you this, they probably could have done a little bit more tonight if they wanted to do it without having to call sets and get them involved. That position in our offense has a lot of freedom, but you have to get yourself engaged and you have to get yourself playing with some force.”
On Tennessee’s balanced scoring:
“There is no doubt we are better when we have that diverse scoring that you talked about. What we talked about with those guys is we need them to score. But we actually said we need other guys to have that same kind of attitude that we are going to score. We told those guys that they are good enough not only to score, but to get other guys some easy baskets. That is why some of the passes, they should have shot a couple tonight when they tried to feed it in some tight spots. When we get the scoring you are talking about, it is hard to guard as a team. We know playing against teams that have that ability, it makes it really difficult to guard.”
On getting out in transition but doing so in control:
“We have not gone up and down the floor since Saturday. That is something we were concerned about because we thought we would be short of numbers and we wanted to make sure we saved legs because we have a quick turnaround to Saturday. Some of that has to do with even though you do it, I don’t care if you spend six, seven minutes a day just playing that pace, it is important that they stay in that rhythm. Early in the game, guys were asking to come out two minutes into the game because it was a fast-paced game, which we knew it would be. They are the 10th fastest-paced team in the country with the pace they play with. It was up and down.
“Jaden wasn’t feeling great. Guys were asking to come out, then they got their second wind, which I thought was important. I really felt going in that we would struggle with that early just because we hadn’t gone up and down since Saturday because of the situation we were in, knowing we couldn’t afford to get anybody hurt. That can happen some when you start opening it up in practice. I am proud of these guys for the preparation and the unknown. We didn’t know until later today the situation right before shootaround, a little bit before that what the deal was. I am just really proud of these guys being locked in and doing what they did.”
On why he got upset with John Fulkerson during a timeout:
“He made an excuse. There are certain ways when we are in a gap that we don’t leave guys, certain guys that shoot high percentage from the three. The fact is, he just didn’t do it. He made an excuse and that is when I said, no, no, no. You know what you did. He said you are right coach. That is the stuff we want to see him do. There is absolutely no reason for those type of breakdowns for a senior. There is no reason whatsoever. If fatigue has something to do with it, I told him you better come out of the game. We are not going to rest on defense. If we are going to rest, it is going to be on the offensive end. We are not resting and we are not going to give up simple scouting report things. A no-catch guy, we can’t do that.
“We did it twice to start the game. Santi did it once and he did it once. Those are the ones that you can’t give up to good players who do that. I took VJ out coming out of a timeout late when he lost Lawson. We had a really good standing and he turned around and started ball-watching and gave up threes. We can’t do that. There are too many guys in this league that can burn you give him a step, just a couple inches. Those are the ones that are frustrating because that is mental. Right now, I think this time of year, the mental preparation is really, really important as compared to the physical part of it. Physically, we should be able to go up and down the floor. We struggled a little bit, but we settled in there. We can’t have those mental breakdowns on the defensive game plan.”
