Tennessee basketball assistant coach Rod Clark met with the local media on Monday afternoon before the Vols head to Columbia to face Missouri.
The Tigers are currently winless in conference play but Tennessee hasn’t forgotten that Missouri beat the Vols twice last season.
Clark discussed that fact, the growth of Tennessee’s freshman and much more. Here’s everything Clark said on Monday.
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On Tennessee’s rebounding drill that has been used to start the last few practices
“So the rebounding drill is three-on-three rebounding. It consists of about four different teams that we do. We get the pennies and the extra Nike jersey we have. It is basically helping the guys understand gang rebounding, what we like to call when, especially like late in games when, in our league, when a shot goes up, you could have six guys, maybe eight guys in the lane all trying to rebound. And that was something that we struggled with in a few of our losses, we just didn’t rebound the right way. And with us, playing kind of a four-guard lineup, the key to everything is going to be us rebounding. That’s going be the key to our season. And we truly believe that. We preach it all the time with the guys. So it was big. We needed to throw in a drill that was going to basically accumulate toughness with us and make sure that we understood. Every day we start practice with that rebounding drill to make sure that guys understand that’s what we have to win games and the high level we have to do (it).”
On how much emphasis there is on team rebounding when Tennessee plays mostly a four-guard lineup
“The biggest thing I would say. That’s probably the No. 1 thing. I think No. 1 was rebounding. No. 2 was playing fast. Because there’s no point of playing fours guard if you’re not going to play fast. So the big biggest thing was rebounding. It was kind of a thing where you’re going to drop off. Like with offensive rebounding, last year I think we were like No. 3 in the country. We’re not going to be No. 3 in offensive rebounding in the country with that (four-guard) lineup. We’re just not. And that’s okay. But it’s a matter of, defensively and offensively, how much do you drop off? I think that we’ve dropped off in offensive rebounding, but not that much. It’s not been crazy. And then with defensive rebounding, it’s still the situation where the guy that we have at the four was still our lead rebounder the last three years. So it’s not like we’re going to be a team that has an inability to rebound. We just have to do it at a high level with smaller bodies.”
On how good it was to see Josiah-Jordan James and Santiago Vescovi both hit shots in the Vanderbilt game
“It was great. It’s always good to see them get a rhythm and giving us that extra scoring punch. Because those are guys that we know are capable. Everybody likes to have opinions on what they think they should and shouldn’t be doing. But for us, man, they’re our leaders. They’re our catalysts. I call them heart and soul all the time. That’s what they are for us and I feel like they’ve been doing a great job. And anytime you can go out and you can see those guys make shots for us, it’s just an added boost of confidence for everybody in the locker room, I think.”
On Tennessee going from a bad game at Texas A&M to a 29-point win at Arkansas and a 35-point win against Vanderbilt
“I think for us sometimes the response is more important than anything. And playing in a league like this, you’re going to get knocked down and you just got to understand how to get back up. And it was a big thing for us to kind of make a statement this past week. We had a blip where we didn’t play great against A&M and it was tough. All of us kind of had to look in the mirror, I would say, staff and players, and we just kind of had to be real with each other and understand that we’re going to get everybody’s best punch. We got to be tough, we got to be resilient. And for us to go out there next week, after working on the rebounding, after working on being better and our gaps, I felt like our response was great. I felt like we dominated in both of those victories. And it was really good to see us kind of take offense to people not feeling like we are as good as we say we are. So I felt like we gave a great punch and we were good.”
On if this Tennessee team still thinks about the two losses to Missouri last season, at Thompson-Boling Arena and in the SEC Tournament
“Talked about it first thing, really before we started. Regardless of the record, I basically said, you know, South Carolina, if you think they came in here and didn’t remember, we beat about 40 two times, you’re crazy because they played like it, you could tell. So for us, regardless of the record, it doesn’t matter. That’s a program that beat up on us two games last year. So we’re not looking at this as a game that we’re going to just skate by. No, that’s not what it is for us. We got to go down there, we want to take care of business. We want to play really well, we want to play really hard. We definitely want to lock into, you know, Sean East and Tamar Bates, who’s playing at a really high level right now. Noah Carter, like those guys — Noah Carter, Nick Honor and Sean East — that were big parts of last year’s team that, like I said, they gave us a good whooping two times. One of them was a buzz beater here. So we remember for sure.”
On how Josiah-Jordan James at the four helps Tennessee play faster
“So with Josiah, what most people don’t understand, I don’t think, when you have most teams play three guards, one of them is a wing and then you have two kind of ball-handling guards. So instead of us having two ball-handling guards, we now have four ball-handling guards. So you have a guy that’s guarding a big majority of the game that’s getting the ball off the board and is able to push it. He’s not getting the ball and looking for a point guard, looking for one of those ball-handling guards to get the ball to, which slows up your break. He’s getting it off the backboard and he’s pushing it himself in advance, passing up the floor, which makes us play faster, which is why we wanted the fastest teams in the country now because of it.
“And you get a game like last week (against Vanderbilt) where I think we scored I think 20, it was like 27 points in transition, something like that. And our points off turnovers at halftime was like 25-0. So when you have a guy at that position that can handle the ball and make decisions, it automatically makes your team faster and it makes your point guard, like (Zakai) Zeigler, he’s able to get up ahead of the floor and get passes and kick aheads and go finish off plays for assists. Whereas normally he’d have to come back and get the ball and get the ball on the floor himself. So it’s a huge advantage for us and I think it’s definitely been a key to success for our offense.”
On the key to being as efficient offensively against Vanderbilt this week
“I thought the first time we played Vanderbilt in the first half they tried to slow us down a little bit and we slowed ourselves down and then in the second half we adjusted to play really fast. So last game was about kind of dictating tempo, playing fast right away, being confident, taking early shots. With Missouri, they’re not a team that plays as slow as Vandy, but still making sure that our tempo is at a high level. Defensively, making sure that we do a really good job of plugging up those gaps and playing out of them. Playing with a lot better hands, emphasis with deflections. And then the first half we did a pretty good job with deflections. Second half, not as much, but Vandy’s not a huge assist to made field goal team, so that kind of goes to some of that. With Missouri they’re also similar in the style where they play in a lot of isos. They obviously have two guards that are very dominant like a Vandy. So one-on-one defense is going to be huge. Off ball, defense being in the gaps, that’s going to be big. Playing with hands, that’s always going be a thing as well. So just kind of translating last games. I would say ability to stick to the game plan, playing aggression and swagger, trying to move that on to the next game.”
On if there was a point of emphasis for Santiago Vescovi to have a quick trigger shooting against Vanderbil
“It’s a point of emphasis all the time. I wish the trigger was a little quicker, honestly. I thought it was great. I thought he was confident, he didn’t think about it. And when you, when you have Santi shooting the ball like that, it opens up so much more for everybody else. And then you have a lineup that’s extremely lethal. So seeing the disparity throughout the guys and us moving the ball and all these guys sharing and scoring, we’d love to have every night like that. Is it possible? I mean, it’s kind of tough, but even half games like that and be capable of it, it was good to see it all come together like that.”
On if the Vanderbilt game was the most Freddie Dilione has made the ‘right play’ this season
“Yeah, I would say probably the most efficient. I know it was the most minutes he’s played at one time or in one game in a while. He did great. You know, the young guys are getting better at growing up. They’re starting to think the game a lot more. They’re learning it. The speed is finally starting to slow down a little bit for them. I’m happy with their progression. I know coach is really happy with the progression. I know he was really complimentary with you guys the other night. But they’re learning, man. It is hard being a freshman in this era and seeing all of your friends and other guys and they’re playing. But, and this is no disrespect to programs, but you look at the best teams in the country, there’s not a lot of freshmen that get a lot of playing time. You look at some of the teams that are struggling, usually they’re playing a lot of young guys. So it’s a tough thing. It’s a tough thing to kind of deal with for them sacrificing for the big picture. But I think that they’ve done it in stride and they’ve done a really good job with it this year.”
On Rick Barnes taking a timeout with Tennessee up big in the first half against Vanderbilt
“Man, I say it all the time. He’s one of the most consistent people we’ll ever meet because we could be up 90 and if we’re not getting the ball where it needs to be, he’s going to be hot about it. You know what I mean? I think coach understands like, it’s not about that one game. It’s kind of about the big picture and the grand scheme for us. Like if Jonas is not touching the ball, and you guys have seen it, if Jonas is not getting the ball and not being productive, it hurts us. We haven’t won a ton of games where he hasn’t been good. So that’s something that always has to be a point of emphasis for us. And our guys have to be mature enough to realize that when we do get in a rut, we have to get him a touch. *Zakai Zeigler walks into the room* That’s going to be something that our little dynamic point guard Bob Causey Award Winner is going have to start doing a better job of through the course of the game.”
On the gap closing between the freshman and normal rotational players
“Practices are getting a lot more competitive. Those guys are starting to give the older guys a little run for their money. They’re getting tougher. They’re understanding our defensive schemes a lot better. They’re getting a lot better at ball screen defense, understanding being between man and ball. So I think they’re growing up and they’ve had a full year of playing against guys that get a lot of minutes on a top 10 team, top five team in the country, every day. So they have no choice but to get better.”
