Tennessee basketball jumped out to an early lead and outlasted Kentucky 103-92 at Rupp Arena in Lexington on Saturday night.
The Vols got massive performances from Zakai Zeigler and Josiah-Jordan James with the pair tying for a team-high 26 points in the win.
After the victory, Tennessee coach Rick Barnes discussed challenging Zeigler before the game, the complete offensive performance and more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
More From RTI: Three Quick Takeaways From Tennessee Basketball’s Win over Kentucky
On saying on Friday that he expected Josiah-Jordan James to snap out of his slump, if this was the kind of performance he envisioned
Well, I don’t know if you expect anything other than … he’s been a huge part of this program from the time he walked on campus. And what I love about him, and I’ve said it before, when Jordan (Gainey) was going through a little bit of a slump, he struggled in practice. But the last two days, we’ve had some really good work in practice. And Josiah got back to getting aggressive. And what we told the guys is that we’re not going to sit around and watch Dalton (Knecht) do it. We’ve got too many good players. And I said we’re not going to do that. And I told those guys, simple, we want you to do what we do.
“And a great performance for our guys tonight against, you guys know how much respect I have for John and his program and his players. And we knew they were going be a really difficult team to guard. You knew they could get going. I thought up until tonight I was the best player to ever come out of Hickory. But that got blown up tonight. (Rob) Dillingham was phenomenal. He was phenomenal. But it was just a great team win for us. I thought Zakai (Zeigler) and everyone we got, talk about it, I thought Tobe (Awaka’s) minutes were really important at a time when they were just really hit us hard on the glass.
“But, am I surprised with Josiah? I mean, we’ve been through so much with those guys and I’m not surprised because of our older guys. Our experience I thought was really, really important tonight.”
On the importance of Tennessee getting off to a fast start on the road in a tough environment
“Well, again, the key is we play fast too. And we told them it’s going be a totally different game than we’ve been in, the last two games we’ve been in, a low-possession game. Played two (lower-possession) teams. And obviously Kentucky’s an extremely fast team that moves with it. We do too. And so we already really tried to concentrate on transition defense, but we didn’t want them to get out and get going early. But the other way, we said, hey, we want to do what we do, get down the floor as quickly as we can, and if we’re open we want shoot it. And again, we made shots early, but the great thing about it was coming in, what we spent most of our time doing, it was a mindset with our guys, I think, the last two days leading up to this. We had some competitive practices and just really proud of the effort tonight.”
On how important it was for Dalton Knecht’s Tennessee teammates to carry more of the load in a win like this
“Yeah, I don’t even know why we go to that point. We haven’t been that kind of team. And I mean, obviously (Knecht) can go do it. And there’s some games, and will be some other games this year, where he’ll do some of that. But again, I also think Kentucky did a nice job guarding. And as the season goes on, he’s going to have to deal with that. I thought that John had a great game plan to make him guard as much as he possibly could. And they, he did a good job getting him in some mismatches that they wanted. And all this is new to (Knecht). And as he continues to grow, like he already has, he’s got a chance to get so much better. But what I think he also more than anything is that his teammates, they believe in him. But they also want him to continue to get better like they get better. And he will because he’s a worker.”
On if he’s seen that level of intensity from Tobe Awaka before
“I’ve seen that intensity from Tobe. I mean, there’s no doubt that he’s got a streak in him. I mean, Tobe’s tough. He’s so young to the game still so beyond and the one thing he’s going to do is rebound, be physical, try to do his job and compete. And that happens. I think with two teams, they’re battling. I mean, both teams played hard and loose ball, you go get them and it’s part of it. But have I seen it? Yeah, I’ve seen him like that a few times.”
On what Jonas Aidoo gave them
“Jonas has to deal with a lot around the rim there. And he helps, there’s so many little subtle things that he does. I do think our guys feel like they’ve got someone behind him that can help them rim protect a little bit. And offensively he’s working hard to try to get his space and do things like that. But Jonas, again, is a big part of what we need from him and what he will do, and this team needs it. And a couple times I thought we could have got it to him a little bit more where he actually got some position, but we didn’t.”
On what was different for Zakai Zeigler compared to the last few games
“Well, in all honesty, I told him that I thought he had to change his demeanor. I told him, I think he’s one of the best point guards in the country. But I told him, the whole team at some point in time, I can’t be the only guy getting on guys. I said, you’ve gotta do that because I am relentless in terms of details and those type of things, but I said, we can’t be a team that when we’re down saying to each other, ‘we’re good, we’re good’ when it’s not good. I said, we’ve got to be transparent and you guys were at practice yesterday. The last two days, he did a great job where he took it on himself. Said, ‘Hey, I’m the guy that’s supposed to be driving this car, and I’m going to make sure that guys are doing what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it and not, I’m going to let them know about it. So tonight I thought he went through a stretch a little bit where he was trying to do a little bit too much, but overall I thought he was terrific.”
On if the way Santiago Vescovi played was the perfect example of affecting a game without taking a ton of shots
“What we tell our guys, we want you to do what you do with confidence. Do what you do, don’t do things you’re not comfortable with. And Santi is very unselfish. I mean, you guys have been in practice, those that watch us practice through the years— that you’ve got to take shots because if we do that, if we turn down shots, which we have at times, it really messes our spacing up because guys are coming in to rebound (and) there’s nowhere to go. And then we just get just discombobulated. But Santi impacts the game in so many different ways, whether he is taking a lot of shots or not. But I love it when he’s driving. I love it when he takes his shots, but it’s what he does all around. His defensive game is just tremendous. And he’s not afraid to go mix it up rebounding wise. And I think his demeanor, I think that he and Zakai and Jamiah and Jonas— I think those, all the older guys, they have a lot of trust in each other, a lot of confidence in each other. And those guys are very real with each other. They really are. They are willing to, you know, they can talk through a lot of things. With Santi, Josiah and Mashack and Ziegler. They do an incredible job with fix-it plays when we break down and do some things and they can really cover each other’s back.”
On scoring 103 points after scoring 59 against South Carolina on Tuesday night
“It goes back, this is a high-possession game. Kentucky, they’re lethal when they get out and run and they get down and swing and they really attack. I’m really kind of surprised. When I was doing a pregame radio show, Bob (Kesling) asked me about their speed. I said, ‘let’s talk about our speed.’ I said, ‘we play fast.’ I said, ‘that’s what we talk about. We play fast.’ So I knew it was gonna be a high-possession game. I knew that there was no question. But it goes back, where I’ve said it many times, that each game takes on its own personality. The last two games that we played with Vanderbilt and South Carolina was more of a lower-possession game, but we knew coming in here it would be an up and down (game), a lot of shots. Have I seen a big swing like that? Probably, you know, in the time I’ve been in it. But that’s the reason. It really is. It’s just there’s so many possessions in this game compared to the last two (games).”
On preparing for Kentucky
“We were very concerned about the guards, whether (DJ Wagner) was playing or not. We knew that he was a guy that could get the mid-range. A guy that’s got a terrific left hand, went to the glass, but it turns out we would’ve prepared really not anything differently. You know, we maybe would’ve mixed up some different ball-screen coverage. We do that every game depending on who it is, how it was going. But in terms of the preparation, we talked about their guards and trying to keep him out of transition, talked about how important it was to get good shots and not let them get out and go. But in terms of the preparation, it was the same.”
On being able to go on a run every time Kentucky’s crowd got into it
“Not to take away anything from North Carolina, but after coming back from Maui, those Maui blues can hurt you, but we fought back in the game. But, you know, we played at Wisconsin this year. We had an exhibition game at Michigan State that was sold out. We played a really difficult schedule. At times, I wondered if it would help us or did it not? Before the week off we were playing pretty good. We came out of the week off and really wasn’t very good. But the fact is, the older guys, as I mentioned earlier, they’ve been in a lot (of games). They’ve been in this building many times. They’ve been in this league (that’s got) some really great home advantages in terms of fans are into it. I’ve said many times, playing at home, too, I think our fans are the best in the country. But those older guys were the ones that got it done in these big arenas and loud crowds. They handled themselves well.”
