Tennessee basketball earned a statement win on Saturday night, going to No. 10 Kentucky and knocking off the Wildcats 103-92.
The win marked Rick Barnes’ 10th victory over the Wildcats as Tennessee’s head coach and marked the third loss in two weeks for Kentucky. It also marked the second time in John Calipari’s tenure that the Wildcats have lost two straight games at Rupp Arena.
After the game, Calipari discussed what went wrong for his team, Tennessee and much more. He’s everything Calipari said.
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Opening Statement
“At halftime I was amazed that we had a chance. I watched a lot of tape. I got to give Tennessee credit. They played, made shots and did stuff. When you look and you say that we shot what we did and we shot from the three what we did. They had a bunch of offensive rebounds, but we had 22 second-chance (points). Three plays hurt us. Two out of bounds. And again, when we don’t have the right guy on the ball, that stuff happens. But the kids fought. And I haven’t lost any faith. We still don’t have DJ (Wagner). I mean, teams are playing good against us. And all our goals are still there. I have a good team. We’re young. We still make some errors., But we got to get healthy.”
On Tennessee playing physically and starting fast
“Early on they were making every shot, which is fine. But we’re down four at half. We make a three. It’s a one-point game. We have our chances. And again, I’ll have to go watch the tape. There were, again, some stuff that went on, some shots that we missed. You got to have a bunch of guys playing at their best when you’re playing against a team like that, top-five team. And they’re playing well. You got guys making shots that hadn’t made shots, making threes. So you’re gonna have to play. And I like the fact that we were there. We were down seven and we had missed four free throws. And I mean, it’s the end of the game, but let’s go. And so some of that stuff hurt us. I just, I don’t want these guys to lose any faith. Your confidence does get shaken when you’re young. I thought Justin (Edwards) did a good job today. It’s great to have him back in there where he can go. He did some really good stuff.”
On what went wrong on the out-of-bounds plays that Kentucky didn’t execute on defense
“The guy out of bounds is supposed to be standing under the basket and he wasn’t. And so they threw it to right at the basket. The guy that got screened had to fight a little bit more, knocked the guy down, do whatever you have to, you can’t give him that. And then we fell asleep on the corner. So they had two layups and the corner three.”
On Kentucky’s defensive issues as a whole
“Well, some of it in this game, there were things that we talked about. You can’t let this team get to the elbows. In every huddle we were saying the same thing. So we got to be a little more sound defensively in what we’re doing. And we’re going to have to be a collective defensive team. I keep saying it. And if one guy stops playing, it’s going to hurt this group. But when we do it together, we can hold our own. But you got to rebound to start the game. They had too many attempts and just about each one of them, they scored a basket. So that’s defense too, by the way.”
On Tre Mitchell’s struggles
“He struggled a little bit. We’ll sit down with him and figure it out. Last game, I stuck with him way too long. This game, I just said, look, maybe it’s not your game. We just gotta get you back. But we play Tuesday, you can’t, we’re on the road. It’ll be another sold out game. Vandy won tonight. So now we’re playing a team that’s confident. They’ve been in every game and now we’re walking into their place. So we got to bounce back. I mean, we’re still one of those teams. We lost two games to teams that played well and deserved to beat us.”
On the message to Kentucky’s big men who struggled
“Well, here’s what happens. Guard. So that they’re not pushing you out of the way on the rebound and two so they can get layups. Just don’t accept it. That’s the first thing. Again, we’re still missing a lot of baskets two feet from the goal that we got to make. We had a dunk to Aaron. It should have been a dunk in the first half. Those kind of plays, like I told them, we got to make those, those are easy plays. But we are, we’re a perimeter oriented team which should open up the lane for some of these guys. And we got some stuff, but we gotta be better.”
On how he keeps the team’s confidence up after back-to-back losses
“Well, it’s, first of all, I told them after, that team (Tennessee) played really well and you fought and had your chances. Some of the breakdowns we can talk about and get better. But I told them, every goal we have is still out in front of us. We’re fine. If we come together and understand. I said, Justin played well, did some good stuff. Robert did well. Robert kept us in the game. I mean, in the first half we were down four because Robert made basket after basket.
Reed did some good stuff. We got to get healthy— it’s hard to get a rotation going when you’re shorthanded. I thought Adou did some really good stuff today. Adou rebounded and scored it at the rim. Made free throws. He did good stuff today.”
On the frustration of giving up 100 points while holding Dalton Knecht in check
“Well, we talked about, you want to guard him, but you also know the other guys can play. They’re dangerous. And what those guys had done, they had five guys in double figures. Well, they hadn’t had that. They had him and the other guy’s getting six, eight points. But those guys are capable. Zeigler is capable. James, the way he played tonight is capable. One of the things I told my guys before the game, ‘some of you guys are gonna have to have some big games here. It’s just gonna have to.’ That’s what happens in these kind of games. You know, two top teams, top five, we were top 10. So it’s hard for these young kids. And I’ve just gotta keep being positive and let’s go. Next game, move on. We got everything out in front of us. League is really good. We’ll see where it goes.”
On teams winning on the road in college basketball this year
“Most guys have new teams. We have a young team. We have the youngest team in the country, but most teams are, they’re new teams. So when stuff hits, you’re still learning who’s what and what they can do. Some veteran teams may be better at it. But most of the teams, you know, Tennessee is a veteran team. They’ve added one piece and that piece is pretty good, but they’re a veteran team. But it’s the same, you know, whether it be losing at home or losing to teams that are unranked, it’s happening to everybody. So that’s why I keep coming back to, I’d say today’s game and South Carolina, we were possessions away from all these other games. And that’s why you just gotta stay the course. You can’t listen to the negative stuff. You can’t listen to all the clutter. We’re still a good team, and now we gotta get healthy and we gotta get back on track. But there’s a lot of people that like to have my team.”
