Tennessee knew that rebounding was going to be integral to its success this season. The Vols planned, and have, played much smaller lineups this year, making them vulnerable to physical teams.
For most the season, Tennessee’s held up well on the glass but back-to-back poor rebounding performances in a win against LSU and a loss at Texas A&M exposed the Vols’ vulnerability in the area and made them readdress their toughness.
They’re doing so with a new rebounding drill at the start of every practice.
“The rebounding drill is three-on-three rebounding,” Tennessee assistant coach Rod Clark said with a chuckle Monday. “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.”
There’s four teams of three players and for 30 seconds they go to battle in the paint. A coach shoots a jump shot to begin the drill and the teams start the rebounding chaos. Each team gets a point for making a shot or drawing a foul— which rarely occurs on the rebound itself but more so on the shots.
Each team fights for the rebound even on made shots. No one takes the ball back to the three-point line and rarely does a single player go more than 15-feet away from the basket.
If someone knocks the ball too far from the basket there’s no chase after it, a coach just shoots another basketball into the fray. It’s 30 seconds of controlled chaos.
“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,” Clark said. “And that was something that we struggled with in a few of our losses, we just didn’t rebound the right way. … 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).”
Tennessee is trying to get intensity and physicality out of the drill. During one set, Jonas Aidoo and Tobe Awaka lock in a jump ball and aggressively fight for it before they’re commanded to let go and a new basketball is shot.
More From RTI: Four-Star Center Talks Tennessee Basketball Official Visit
Clark tells the Vol players to “be dogs” as they start a new set. At 5-foot-9, the game is ill suited for point guard Zakai Zeigler. But the tough junior is very much a dog and finds his own ways to make an impact.
“I definitely feel like we got the best team,” Zeigler said before Monday’s practice. “Me, Tobe (Awaka) and Cam (Carr) because you know, somebody put the ball on the ground, I’m getting it and I tell Tobe, go get every rebound. And Cam, he got those go-go gadget arms. So I feel like we definitely got the best team, but for sure for the whole team, that’s definitely a really effective drill for us.”
Lo and behold, Zeigler was good to his word. He stripped Jonas Aidoo, twice made baskets and their team earned the victory during Monday’s practice. The win kept the trio on the baseline while the rest of the team ran sprints before Tennessee moved on with its practice.
“It sets the tone a lot because we know that coach … he coming in and he’s not playing,” Zeigler said. “So we got to be on our Ps and Qs and just going into every game, like especially going on the road, we going into tough environments, we know we just got to be tough in it. Fouls aren’t going to be called and we just got to be those tough gritty guys.”
After LSU and Texas A&M recorded 46% and 38% offensive rebounding percentages against Tennessee, the Vols started doing the new drill. They responded in two wins last week holding Arkansas to a 24% and Vanderbilt to a 26% offensive rebounding percentage.
Tennessee playing smaller and faster has been key in its offense’s vast improvement this season. Josiah-Jordan James and Jahmai Mashack’s versatility is crucial in the style change not hurting them on the defensive end.
Rebounding is where Tennessee is more vulnerable with its new play style. It’s a major key for the Vols getting to where they want to be this season.
“That’s going be the key to our season,” Clark said. “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.”
