Tennessee associate head coach Justin Gainey met with the local media on Friday morning before the Vols head to College Station to face Texas A&M in a critical SEC game.
Gainey discussed Tennessee’s rebounding woes against Texas A&M, the challenges of going on the road with a target on their back and much more. Here’s everything Gainey said.
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On Tennessee’s rebounding problems against LSU
“I thought it was a couple things. One, it was some weird misses. A couple air balls, couple just like front rims that came off really fast. But for the most part it was long shots, which equaled the long rebounds. And I thought they did a good job of not necessarily going to get the ball, but smacking it out when we were trying to catch it. So I thought they did a good job of that. I thought it was unique in the sense of (Tre) Hannibal as a point guard crashed the glass really hard, and most times the point guard gets back, so you don’t really have to account for him. And in this instance, he was crashing, he was crashing hard. Whether he had fell down coming from out of bounds or crashing in from the perimeter. He did a good job of doing that. So a combination of those things played into it. Didn’t think we were great driving guys back. I thought the initial hit, the initial blockout was good, but then as far as finishing the job by driving them out, I didn’t think we did a great job on that. And that’s something we got to clean up moving forward, especially preparing for Texas A&M, who was one of the best, if not the best rebounding team in the country.
On LSU coach Matt McMahon complimenting Tennessee’s off ball screening, who on the team is best at it
“Man, off ball screening I think Santi does a great job of it, getting guys open. Here lately, Jordan’s been really good, especially that underneath out of bounds, him and Dalton together. I would say Dalton’s really good at coming off of them. I would say Santi is another guy that’s really good at coming off of those screens.”
How much better Jordan Gainey has gotten defensively, how much that helps spark his game
“I think it does a lot. With Coach (Barnes), if you don’t guard, if he doesn’t feel like you’re guarding to the level that he wants you to or you or you need to, then you’re not going to play. So I think the better he can defend, the better that he can sustain it for longer stretches. I think will play into to that.”
On how much he appreciates the level Tennessee point guard Zakai Zeigler has been playing at this season as a former point guard himself
“It’s really impressive. And I joke around with him a lot, but he is … the jump he’s made, and we were all a little skeptical, I think of not getting all the way back, but the timing and how long it would take for him to get back from the injury last year. And it feels like he’s hitting his stride and he’s taking that jump and it is really impressive, from the scoring to the facilitating to also what he does on the defensive side. And I think he’s also grown as a leader as well. He communicates a lot more in the film room (and) on the floor. And I think that’s been a huge jump for him, because he’s always kind of in spurts did the things we see him doing, but the more he talks, the more he’s expressing to everybody what he sees to Coach, has helped him take another jump.”
On if he can see something in Jordan Gainey’s game that tells him he’s in rhythm
“Man, you can see it on the defensive side. I thought when he came in the other night (against LSU), he right away kind of got like a deflection and maybe a steal and was able to kind of get out and transition. I always think like transition baskets, easy baskets help you kind of get your rhythm going on the offensive end. For a guy that has always scored the ball, getting in that rhythm sooner rather than later is always helpful. So I think just kind of igniting it on the defensive side of the ball and not necessarily just thinking about one area of the game more than another kind of helps him ease into it a little bit smoother. But I think he’s been giving us great pop off the bench. And even when he hasn’t scored it, I’ve always we felt like he’s doing other things, whether it’s defensively, whether it’s making the extra passes or screening or whatever.”
On Texas A&M’s rebounding prowess, what else stands out
“The rebounding is real and they have two guards that are as good as any backcourt in the country with Wade (Taylor IV) and (Tyrece) Radford, and those guys are playing really well right now. So being able to slow them down, I mean, guys like that, that are volume to the level that they are— it’s really hard to stop. Right. And they’re high level guys and so just doing a good job on them is going to be a key.”
On if Cam Carr has taken advantage of his opportunities the last few games
“I do. Cam is a confident kid and it’s been fun to see him grow in practice and continue to work hard and, again, that’s another guy like defensively, he’s got to keep going. To see his role grow and to get better, to get to go in that role, he’s got to continue to show and gain trust from coach, from his teammates that you can rely on him defensively because he can really shoot the ball and he can score the ball. So the defensive side is where it’s going to be. I do think he has done a good job of maximizing the minutes that he’s getting.”
On Texas A&M playing in a lot of close games
“The challenge is that if it’s close down the stretch, you know you’re in for a dog fight. And it is going to be a tough game anyway. I mean, the environment is great. Coach Williams is a great coach. They have great players, they’ve been together. So it is going to be a tough one, but you I think being in that many tough game shows you the mental toughness of their group and the togetherness of their group. And so it is going to be a great matchup and something that we’re going to have to be able to match or surpass their mental toughness and physical toughness for the duration of the game. And knowing coming down that stretch that they have been in those battles, but we have too and we’re confident in ourselves and what we do that, you know, we can match that.”
On having a target on their back when they go on the road in the SEC
“I mean, we talk to our guys all the time about it and I don’t think it’s just us. And I mean it does increase it when you do have a number in front of you. I’m not going to be oblivious to that, but at this time of year, all wins are huge. And I feel like, whether it’s us coming in there or whether it is whoever else in the SEC, like for the home team, these are must wins. You’ve got to take care of your home court if you want to— like, I mean, a good team like Texas A&M wanting to make it to the NCAA tournament, if you want to get there, you got to take care of home court. And that’s the same way we feel like we have a sense of urgency when we are at home. And so we come in expecting everybody’s best points at this time of year because these wins are so, so valuable.”
On the impact Santiago Vescovi makes outside of just making shots:
“Oh, it’s huge. It’s huge because I mean, you’re talking about an all-league level guy who, he’s all about winning. That’s what I think kind of gets lost in, whether it’s, they talk about scoring not where it was, like Santi is a winner. I never thought Santi was a guy that just focused on scoring or just focused on one thing. He’s one of the most competitive guys I’ve ever been around, and his main focus is the scoreboard. Whether he scores 30 points or whether he scores two points, he’s the same guy after the game as long as we win. If we don’t win, he’s upset, he’s down, but as long as we win — you feel his presence in every win, whether it’s those little plays where he’s diving on the floor, he’s got those loose balls, which end up being big plays and, and big momentum swingers in the game.
And you can always count on him being a high level defender. If you watch the game, you see him orchestrating the defense, putting guys in places and when we are in rotations and all of that. So what he brings is invaluable in way, way, way more than, you know, things that show up on the stat sheet sometimes. But with seeing him do that for all of our guys and seeing him make those type of plays, it shows that, look, we expect everybody to do it. If Santis doing it, we expect everybody to be able to get on the floor and make those kind of plays.”
On how unusual it is for a player like Vescovi to not take as many shots later in their career, considering he’s made over 300 threes
“Yeah. I don’t know. Yeah, I mean, again, with Santi, it’s all about winning. It’s all about winning and it just shows how great of a teammate he is and how much of a winner that he is. That he’s willing to pass up a good shot for a great shot. I think he’s doing a great job of moving off the ball, cutting. I think he’s doing a great job of getting to the basket. If you look at his assisted turnover ratio, it is probably as high as it’s been since he’s been here. And so he’s facilitating, he’s making guys better. And look, he’s a high, high IQ guy. He understands how teams are playing him. He doesn’t really get a lot of great looks and he understands how they’re closing out to him and he’s making them pay for it. So I think it all comes down to just his single focus, the single reason why he came back is to win basketball games. It wasn’t an add on to his legacy, add on to his stats. It was to win and he will do whatever it takes to win.”
On how hard it is to speed up a team that plays slow, and how hard it is to slow down a team that plays fast
“It’s tough. It is tough. But, you know, there’s still some things, like I though last game, they (LSU)wanted to kind of slow the tempo down a little bit and I thought we did a good job of forcing tempo and playing faster. And so I think we have to be in those games, continue to be aggressive, to continue to be mindful of, ‘Hey, let’s play at our pace and do what we do.’
“But you know, again, a team that wants to walk it up and play in the half court and take long possessions, it is tough to speed them up because that’s what they are kind of accustomed to doing. But we have to on our side, make sure we continue to be who we are and play Tennessee basketball.”
On how good Tennessee can be when all of its shooters all get it going on a night
“I think we can be as good a team that there is in the country because we do have a lot of options and we have a lot of weapons, but I would also say like, we gotta make sure we are taking care of the backboard. That we are rebounding the basketball. That we are sharing the ball, doing all the little things. Getting all the 50-50 balls in order to get to where we want to be. And you know, I think we have as many shooters as we’ve had since I’ve been here, but I think the last few years, we’ve had some good offensive players. But when you hit those lulls, it’s tough to score and you gotta rely on those other things. And that’s what we are continuously being mindful of with our guys like, you’re not always gonna make shots. We gotta make sure we’re doing all the other stuff that leads up to them.”
