Tennessee basketball completed the season sweep of Vanderbilt on Saturday night, earning an 88-53 victory over the Commodores.
The Vols started red-hot from the field and quickly built a double-digit lead that they expanded to 31 points at halftime. Tennessee pushed the lead to as much as 41 points in the second half as they cruised in the victory.
Following the win, Tennessee coach Rick Barnes discussed the Vols’ hot start, why he liked the minutes from young players and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
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On what goes into a complete performance like the one Tennessee had
“Well, first half I thought we were terrific. And honestly, I really do think a lot of it has to do with the respect that we have for Vanderbilt and Coach (Jerry) Stackhouse. And we’ve been in so many tough games and our older guys understand the game in a mature way and we know that they’re a team that runs really good offense. And if you’re not ready, really in the first half, they had some shots that they’re certainly capable of making and they didn’t go down. And we shot the ball well. But I just know the preparation of our guys, because of the respect for his program and the way he does things, our guys came out ready to play.
“And really pleased with the young guys trying to play the game the right way at the end. I thought that was really important. I thought those minutes were really good for them. But they respected the game in terms of trying to play it the right way.”
On Josiah-Jordan James and Santiago Vescovi both scoring in double-figures, how much of a boost that is for this Tennessee team
“It really is, and again, I think it goes back to Santi and Josiah and Zakai – the guys that have been longer – again, the respect that they have for their opponent (to) come into the game and know that their preparation was good coming in. But when they’re playing with the rhythm that they were playing with, and we played well. I mean, you guys have watched us all year. That’s about as good a 20 minutes as we’ve put together all year. Things were going our way. And those older guys were really the ones that were responsible for it.”
On taking a timeout with Tennessee leading 35-23 late in the first half, why he called it
“Well, really, honestly, I wanted Jonas Aidoo to be more part of the offense. Because we worked hard with trying to get him more involved. And I think we took three straight threes there at one time without any thought of putting the ball (inside) to give him a chance to play a little bit. And what he does is not easy. And we talked about it enough, really and truly, that we’ve got guys that can shoot and we expect them to shoot when they’re open. But at some point in time — I think we missed a couple in a row — we had talked about getting (Aidoo) more involved and we lost sight of that.”
On Tennessee playing that well, if he had anything different prepared for Vanderbilt compared to the first game
“No, I don’t think any of that. I don’t think we did one thing that their staff wasn’t prepared for. I don’t. This time of year, I mean, they knew. But we made shots. I’ve said before, it all looks nice when shots are going in and it was. And I thought defensively, again, I really believe what I just said to you earlier is the respect that our players have for the schemes they run and want to do a better job guarding it. Or doing the best job we could guarding it. And as I said, they still got some looks that I’m sure that they would like to have. And we’ve had games like that too, where we executed but didn’t get the result because we didn’t make an open shot. I thought our guys were really locked in on both ends of start the game and, to me, it’s the ultimate respect that you can give them.”
On the significance of getting rest for the starters this week
“Well, I hope it’s big. I do think both of those guys (Dalton Knecht and Zakai Zeigler) hopefully they can benefit from it because we do have a quick turnaround, Tuesday (at Missouri). Tomorrow we’ll just scrub the game (film) out and have a prep day to get ready and go play. But I guess we’ll find out after the game in terms of … I’m a big rhythm person. I think that when the team gets in a rhythm, you want to try to ride that wave. But with that thought in mind, I hope that because they have played so many minutes this year that it will benefit (Knecht) and not playing as many tonight.”
On how he has seen Tennessee freshman Cam Carr improve since arriving here
“I thought he played more and played long minutes, which early in the year, he was a guy that got fatigued after a minute or so. And all those young guys like that, they need time. I’ve talked to you guys about it before. I wish we would’ve had a schedule maybe earlier in the year where we could have got those guys more minutes in certain situations. But what they had benefited from is practicing every day against the team that they go against every day. And I’ve watched in practice, all the coaches we talk about it, and how that gap was wide and they start to close up from them learning how hard to play, what you got to do. And so even though they haven’t got as many minutes as you’d like to get them in the game, the fact is they’ve done better because of did have to go against (the starters) every day, because you guys watching practice. And those older guys are pretty locked in every day.”
“I’m just really proud of the fact that they played the game. They really truly tried to play the game the right way when they were out there. It wasn’t coming in, nothing like garbage time, that they understand they were valuable minutes. And what they’re learning is it’s a game of trust and they want us to trust them as a coaching staff. It starts in practice, but when you get minutes in the game, you’re not out there trying to show things you can’t do. You’re trying to show the things you can do.”
On what Cade Phillips has done to reinsert himself
“As you guys know, we thought he would be a guy with a redshirt, but the older guys came and said, ‘we’re going to need him at some point.’ And like many, many freshmen, he went through a period where he had somewhat, I guess, in the valley where he leveled off and kind of lost the edge he had. But he found it over the last 10, 12 days, he got back to doing what we wanted him to do and play the role that he needed to play. And again, it goes back to what I mentioned just a few seconds (ago) about trust. He’s got the trust back that he needs from all of us, not just the coaching staff, but his teammates, knowing that if he comes out there, he can impact the game.”
On where his team has grown the most over the course of the season
“That’s a really good question because we’re always talking about trying to get better and we haven’t been as consistent all the time with our— the fundamentals in terms of our schemes, whether it’s ball screen, rebounding, we’ve had our ups and downs there. I think, I don’t know how to say it really, other than the fact I think even as a coach and staff we’ve been able to tweak some things and do some things that maybe players have shown us where they could be effective. Like tonight, for instance, we put Tobe at the elbow and isolate him there. And he made a really good play for us. And even honestly learning how to with a guy like Dalton, how do we connect him with those other guys, which he’s done it himself because those guys, our older guys, want to win. And knowing that when you have a guy that other teams like that have to game plan for, how you can move him and keep him in positions where they can’t set on just a few things. And so not only you’re trying to do that with different offensive schemes, but then like defense I told him, I said, ‘Hey man, I’m telling you right now, this half you better show me you really want to guard. I don’t care if you score a point, you better give us that effort defensively.’ And I thought he did. And he’s getting better when we need him to get better. I would, I think more individually where these guys really understand what each guy’s capable of doing and that’s where we’re at our best when guys do what they they’re good at and stay away from things that we’re not as good at it, it’s probably the biggest growth that they’re understanding each other in a good way that way.”
On Tennessee having a season-high 28 assists
“Well, we’re at our best when we move the ball, when we’re moving people and moving the ball, that’s when we’re at our best. We try to create some confusion and get some separation to get our guys’ feet set and get them into rhythm shots. Or again, like I said, we wanted to try to get inside with it a little bit more. But when you’re shooting it like that it’s hard to tell guys that when they see daylight not to shoot it, but we love it when we’re sharing the ball like that.”
On if Cam Carr has ever seen a shot that he doesn’t like
“I think he’s probably leading the nation in shots per minute attempted.”
On balancing the fine line of confidence and selectiveness
“Again, I’m glad to see it go in for him. Because you guys, again, have watched him in practice and he’s a guy that he can, he can get buckets quick and it’s when he relaxes and let it— when he goes searching for it he gets in a hurry. But getting out there, playing those extended minutes, I thought he settled down a little bit, but I thought he had two really terrific blocks. You know, I thought he went up and I think people can get fooled sometime because he’s got a long reach and if he played heavy minutes, he would probably be our second leading shot blocker on the team. I mean, he is a guy that can go block shots.”
