Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes met with the local media on Wednesday afternoon with the Vols’ season opener against Tennessee Tech.
Barnes discussed the status of a number of key players, where his team’s at defensively, Sunday’s exhibition game against Michigan State and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said on Wednesday.
More From RTI: Santiago Vescovi Out Against Michigan State
On how Tennessee will treat the exhibition game Sunday at Michigan State
“I think we’re looking to see how many guys we can get with a sustained effort. Obviously you would expect your older guys to be able to go out and play through cardio fatigue more. I think the young guys will be a little bit anxious. I think we’re all ready to play outside competition, but hoping to see that we can do some of the things that do a lot of things that we practice. But we’ll play hard because we know Michigan State’s gonna play hard. I think they have an exhibition tonight. And then from there, we’ll go out and we want to give everybody a look, but we’re going to, from our point of view, we want to execute. Every time you go out, you want to win a basketball game, whether you’re it’s an exhibition game or not, but we want to see the effort and the concentration that we’re trying to build to.”
On the importance of this kind of scrimmage for this Tennessee team, giving players a chance to follow a scouting report and execute on the road
“That’s why we do it. Even if it were a non-televised game, like it was a year ago, a closed scrimmage. That’s why we do this when we will have a dry run through all of it. Last Saturday, we tried to do what the pregame warmup would be like for each team. And we obviously did that and we played 40 minutes, and that’s the first time we’ve gone 40 minutes all year. But it’s part of that too. We’ve got our two games right here, our two exhibition games where we treat them as regular-season games from our scout through personnel, everything to see if we can get the concentration that we’re looking for and from the beginning and let them understand how important it is to pay attention to what the coaches are doing to try to help them be ready for what they’re gonna see.”
On Santiago Vescovi ahead of the Michigan State exhibition
“Santi won’t (be available). His grandmother is not doing well. He’s gonna leave tomorrow to go back home. And she’s very, very ill right now and he’d like to be with his family. So he’s leaving tomorrow to go back to Uruguay.”
On the status of Zakai Zeigler for Tennessee on Sunday
“I think we won’t know with Zakai until probably Saturday when we get through a practice. And you know, when he’s been fully cleared. And he’s starting to do more in practice. Yesterday he pretty much went through the majority of practice yesterday. I think he’ll do a lot today in the scrimmage when we get going today.
“That (Zeigler’s availability Sunday) will be determined sometime, probably Saturday to be quite frank and how he does there. But regardless, I think that with our new guys, it’s gonna be a great experience for them. When you’re talking about Santi and Zakai, you’re talking about two guys that are elite defenders, two guys that know what we want, two guys that bring speed to the court when they’re there. They change the court. But we know last year, when Zakai got hurt, the one thing we wanted to do is get our depth right.
“So if we can deal with situations like this that we’re in, it’s gonna give those (other) guys probably, a chance to play more than they’re ready for if those guys don’t play. Because I don’t think (other players are) ready to play four minutes all out on both ends yet, younger guys, they’re not. But getting it on film and letting them see it, probably grab their attention probably, as much as I try to show them every day with film and everything, games are different, but we’ll see. I’m excited for it. I am a I’m excited for young guys to see how they respond to it.”
On how different this exhibition at Michigan State will be, played in front of a crowd and on TV, versus the closed scrimmage Tennessee hosted last season
“Yeah, it is (different). But I’d like to think with where we’re going in college basketball right now, I do think that it’s just a matter of time before our league goes to 20 conference games. And every time you hear that, everybody says, well, you lose the chance to play these (non-conference) games and whatever. That’s why I’ve always believed that we should be allowed to play two exhibition games in front of an arena to get all that going. It’ll only help us. I mean, what you’re saying, it is gonna be different because last year when we did this game, there was nobody in the building. And it’s different as when it’s there. I think everybody is excited when people are in the stands watching the games and you really don’t know what you’re doing.
“Like when we scrimmage ourselves, there’s no subs. As much as we want our guys to fight fatigue and get through it, it’s hard because we’ve had a couple scrimmages now where we literally have had a sub that we’ve had to move back on both teams, and it’s really hard to get the guys at that level. So the exhibition games are good. Plus, I think it would be great for referees. I think referees need to be in games like that as opposed to (just practice), we will have referees here today. And it’s not the same as when you’re going to go outside the competition. So moving forward, if you have a cause like we’re playing for this year with the Maui Classic (Invitational) and doing this for the Maui Fund, I appreciate what Michigan State’s done because I know their fanbase. They love their basketball team or basketball program and Tom. He jumped on it right away. He thought it was a great idea. With it being on the Big 10 Network and I know they’re going to do a great production or they’re gonna do different things throughout the game. He and I are gonna talk, I guess, during the game at some point. It’s gonna be a different kind of production which all that stuff’s gonna be good for TV going forward. I like the exhibition games and I’ve always thought that we need a couple of those. And especially if in college basketball, if you think about it, if everybody decided we want to help one cause whatever it may be, if everybody could play two exhibition games and the funds could go towards something like that, I think it would be great. Not only for the teams, but for officials and for college basketball in general.”
On if he and Tom Izzo are going to talk on the broadcast
“I think. Yeah, I think we’re gonna be mic’d up and it’s kind of what we did with Gonzaga. Remember a year ago, I think they, Fran (Fraschilla) interviewed me a little bit during the game. I think it’s gonna be the same kind of deal like that where they’re going to do some different things. And honestly, when they called to ask, I just simply said, ‘hey, if Tom wants to do it, I’m, I’m all for it.’ because I’ve got so much respect for him and the kind of person he is and the way he’s built his program and the way he’s sustained his program. And he’s been a model of what coaching should be about. Again, we’re gonna go play it like, we’re not going up there just to say we’re going to play basketball. We’re gonna go up and try to play the best we can play and try to win a basketball game. And I know his teams are gonna do the same thing, but we both know we’ve got things we’ve gotta see and get done. But I know both teams are gonna play extremely hard.”
On balancing letting offensive minded players play through defensive mistakes while sustaining defensive identity
“I think there’s some mistakes you can’t make. One of them is lack of effort. That’s not gonna be tolerated. And most guys can, if they just play hard, they can fight through and we’ve got enough guys on our team that, we talk about fix-it guys. We’ve got some guys that they can’t be fixing it for the same guy every time. And, in most situations, when guys are being pulled out for defensive purposes, it’s because we think it’s a lack of effort or a lack of concentration. If they’re doing the things they need to do— one, we respect the fact the other team’s trying to score and they’re good at what they’re doing, but we just wanna see the effort of guys trying to stay in front of the ball, fight through screens and not dying on screens. But I like for them to think that if they will get lost on the defensive end they’ll become an even better offensive player.”
On what he’s seen from DJ Jefferson since he’s returned
“He’s back, he’s back and he’s in practice now. He knows he’s got work to do and you wanna see him again. Back to the previous question, his whole progress has to be made on the defensive. He’s got things he’s gotta get better there. If he does that he can help us.”
On if freshman big men JP Estrella and Cade Phillips can help them
“I do think the two freshman bigs will play. Like, JP had his best practice two days ago. First time that I would say that he played with the older guys and really had a good day. And we complimented him on it. And like most freshmen, he came back yesterday and it was just okay. Thought after one good day that it’s gonna be that easy the next day. We’ve talked about Cade and what he’s done. I mean, he’s got a really good feel for the game. He knows, and I’ve said before, I’ve been impressed with him and with the fact he missed the summer and really our trip and everything. But since we’ve gotten back, he’s worked really hard and we still need Tobe and Jonas. Those guys, they’re important. I don’t think there’s gonna be any secret. People are gonna hug up to our shooters and make us throw it inside and see if those guys can deliver for us and hopefully they can.”
