Tennessee basketball ended Texas’ season on Saturday night by knocking off the Longhorns 62-58 in the Round of 32 in Charlotte.
It was an ugly offensive game where both teams shot under 37% from the field but the Vols were clutch at the free throw line late to knock Texas out of the tournament.
After the loss, Texas coach Rodney Terry discussed Tennessee’s stout defense, how proud he was of his team and much more. Here’s everything Terry said.
More From RTI: Everything Rick Barnes Said After The Vols Knocked Off Texas To Advance To Sweet 16
Opening Statement
“I’d like to start out by congratulating Tennessee on a well-fought victory tonight. A lot of respect for Coach Barnes, family to me. Happy for him and his team.
But I’m really proud of my team and my guys. I love these guys. These guys had a heck of a year. We got better and better as the season went along. They really persevered through some adversity at times, and they just stayed the course.
I’m just so proud of how they carried themselves all season long, on the court, off the court, and I can’t be prouder of a group that I’ve had a chance to be a part of and work with every single day and coach. I love my guys, and I love their effort tonight.
We came up a little short, but these guys are winners, and they’re going to be winners for the rest of their lives.”
On what this season meant to him
“I give God glory every single day for every opportunity we have every single day that we have. We don’t take any day for granted, and I always express that to our guys how it’s a great day to be alive every single day. We’re not promised tomorrow.
I said to our guys just in the meeting this morning, it’s bigger than basketball. The three people you don’t ever want to disappoint in life, don’t ever want to disappoint God. You don’t ever want to disappoint your family. You don’t ever want to disappoint your friends. I live by that every day.
I also gave them a 9-9-9 rule. You’re always going to have 9 people like you, 9 people dislike you, and 9 people on the fence. The moral of the story is you’re not going to please everybody, but the most important person you need to please is yourself, love yourself, and you’ll have a great life.”
On if Dalton Knecht is the type of guy that can get them deeper in the tournament
“I think any time you have a guy that can carry a team — I mean, tonight he had 18 points, and he had to take 18 shots to get those 18 points, but he’s a terrific player. Any time you have star power with a guy that’s a really hard one-on-one matchup that could take over a game, that gives you an opportunity to be elite.
They have that. They have a guy that on any given night he could go for 30 in a game, and he could change the outcome of a game. Yes, you ride your guys this time of year, just like we’re going to ride our guys. Max Abmas has been at this stage at this level, Disu’s been at this level on this stage. We’re going to ride our main guys down the stretch, and those guys had terrific years for us, and they’re guys that can carry you into the next weekend.
For sure, they’ve got a bona fide star in Dalton, and he could definitely carry those guys away down the stretch.”
On what makes Rick Barnes’ defenses so successful
“I think, again, both of us really have a stable point of trying to have a really good defensive team. You’re trying to play physical. Coach plays extremely physical, teams have always been physical on the glass, trying to keep you out of the paint, force you into tough twos, tough threes, and then try to limit your second-chance opportunities.
It’s always been great — Coach has always taught a great help-side defense, gap defense, where it’s really hard to get into the teeth of the defense without guys making competitive plays. We try to do the same thing ourselves and thought that the first half they did a really excellent job of that in the first half. We had some unforced turnovers that kind of put us behind the eight ball at the half a little bit and everything.
Give them credit, they sped us up a little bit. They played hard, really tough. Coach gets guys to play really hard and really tough, and that’s a talent, and that’s coaching. If you can get your guys to buy into playing really hard — defense, rebounding, being physical — that’s coaching. Coach has done it for a long time at a very high level.”
On the familiarity between the two teams, hard to throw something at them that they don’t know
“I think playing every year in the last couple years, obviously we’re very familiar with one another in terms of the way we play and what we try to get done from an offensive standpoint. I think one thing I thought we did really good tonight that maybe they weren’t prepared for, we threw zone out there, which we had to because they were doing such an excellent job with their offense versus our man. We needed to change the game up and change our rhythm a little bit in terms of the pick-and-roll.
They were really attacking us in the teeth of our defense. So we needed to try to protect elbows and blocks and try to change the game and limit their second-chance opportunities. I thought that change really gave us a chance down the stretch to win the ballgame.”
On Zakai Zeigler’s impact for Tennessee
“Dalton is a big-time player. The head of the snake is the little dude. The little dude causes a lot of problems out there. He’s all over the place defensively. He’s Defensive Player of the Year in the SEC. He’s causing all kind of havoc on that end of the floor. Then you throw in that he can get into the teeth of the defense and get something for himself or create for a teammate.
Dalton’s had a special year, but he probably didn’t have that special year if it weren’t for the little guy who can get into the teeth of the defense and create scoring opportunities for him. He’s the head of the snake. He’s a really terrific player and one that we had a lot of respect for.”
