Tennessee basketball opened its 2024-25 season with an 80-64 victory over Gardner-Webb on Monday night at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center.
Following the game, first-year Gardner-Webb coach Jeremy Luther met with the media where he discussed the high number of fridges at TBA, what he liked about his team’s performance and more. Here’s everything Luther said.
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On what makes Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier difficult to prepare for, what he did to give them issues
“He’s really big. He’s really long. He’s really athletic. He’s really strong. And we knew that just watching film on him from his time at North Florida. When he’s shooting the ball like that, he’s tough to guard because he can get you from from deep, he can put it on the floor, he can create. So it makes it hard for guys at our level to be able to defend that. And he’s been at our level. North Florida is low major like we are, but he’s done a great job with his body, getting strong, and he can make shots. When he makes shots, man, good player.”
On if there are different things Chaz Lanier is doing at Tennessee compared to what he did at North Florida, based on the film
“Well, he’s around a whole lot more better players. North Florida, he was kind of the guy. So when you’re the guy for a team, as we prepare, we can kind of load up and defend that. But when we’re coming to Tennessee and you got to play all the guys that Tennessee puts on the floor, it just makes his game that much more better, much more simple here. He doesn’t have to four slot. He doesn’t have to overplay offensively. He can just be another guy out there. The way they move the ball, get him into space and he can beat you. Having to guard everybody else makes his game better.”
On what he liked about Gardner-Webb’s run to end the game
“Yeah, we fought. I was telling the guys that shoot around, this is a great experience for us. I’ve got to play four, sometimes five of these games every year. And it’s our Super Bowl, you know? It’s we don’t get to come in and play in front of however many (fans are at Food City Center). How how much does this play seat? Like, 18,000, 19,000, 17,000, whatever it is. We don’t get that. More people were in the arena tonight than are in the town of Boiling Springs (North Carolina), you know? So it’s awesome for us. It’s fun for us. It’s a great environment for us. So we knew coming in how good they were, how hard they play, how athletic they are. And our guys did not quit. Our kid doesn’t step out of bounds right there. We have a chance to cut it to nine with whatever, with a minute left to play. So that’s a (Tennessee) team that some people are saying could go to the Final Four. SEC champs, preseason. I couldn’t be more proud of our guys, for us to come in here.
“I can guarantee you that we won’t face a team in the Big South anywhere near what Tennessee is. So if we can come into that environment and play the way we did and not give up … that game could’ve gone from 22 to 42 quick, right? You’ve seen it a lot. We went from 22 to to 10 or 11, whatever it was, and we lost by 16. And we beat the spread. I don’t gamble, but beat the spread.”
On the Tennessee game preparing them for its matchup at Pittsburgh next week
“I haven’t seen Pittsburgh yet. It tells me a lot about our team. We had two closed-door scrimmages. One we were kind of banged and we’re still banged up. We got a top-100 kid, junior college kid that’s really good, who just got off concussion protocol on Saturday. So he just got back, and he’s athletic. He can shoot it. He really defends. So we haven’t played a game, obviously our first one, or a scrimmage with our full full roster yet.
“So I hope Pitt’s not as good as Tennessee. But I think if we compete … one thing about this game or any game, if you got kids that will fight and not give up in battle I mean, we outrebounded them tonight. Little Gardner-Webb outrebounded (an) SEC (team). We turned them over eight times in the second half. That just shows you’re fighting. If you got a fighter’s chance and your kids aren’t going give up on you, you got a chance to be be pretty good.”
On using the Indiana exhibition game to scout Tennessee
“That’s pretty much all we had. And then kind of what Coach Barnes has done over the years with his team. So we had an idea of how they would play.
When you’re as good as him and you’ve had as much success as Coach Barnes has had, you don’t really change a lot. You can recruit to what you do. So we knew how physical they were going be. We knew with how we play offense and our chase and lifts and things we do with our kids, they were going prevent us from being able to move freely. So we try to prepare for that, but you know how that is. It’s going against our scout team and against them, it’s a completely different level. So you try to prepare for it. We told the guys after that first, second media time, I said we told you, you’re not going to be able to do the same things you do against our scout team or our second team every day. But it is what it is at this time of year. We just preach fight … and we’re just trying to get better at what we’re good at. And I think we’re good at, we play hard, we’re going to rebound. We got some kids that can make some shots. And for our level, we got pretty good size. You know, Anthony Selden, Jermaine Mann, Isaiah Richards, Adelaide Badmus, for the low major, they’re as big and as strong as athletic as anybody we’re going to face. So just get better at what we can do, and then when the when the competition gets a little less, I think we’ll have a chance to be pretty good.”
On guard Daryl Simmons II scoring 22 points for Gardner-Webb
“Daryl Buddy Simmons. He’s really good, awesome kid. I know I look really, really young and really in shape. I don’t look like I’ve been doing this for 26 years, but he is as athletic of a kid. Now (Zakai) Ziegler, obviously, he’s athletic as well. But Buddy is as fast as any kid I’ve ever had at our level with the ball in his hands, and he makes really good decisions. If he was, if he was 6-1, 6-2 instead of 4-7, he’d probably be playing at Tennessee. He’s that caliber of an athletic kid. And he competes.
“We brought the team over last night, it was funny. We practiced yesterday, got up here, and I said let’s just go shootaround. Everybody’s out here as they walk in to Tennessee, they’re taking videos of the arena. It’s cool. It’s big for all (of us). I mean, even my all three of my kids are taking pictures and running around stealing drinks out of all the refrigerators. You guys got more refrigerators than any place in in America. We got so many drinks out of your refrigerators. But we’re all doing that, and Buddy’s going through a full-on workout with one of the GAs. I mean, he was dead sweat, dead tired, shots from spots that we work on. He’s a competitor and he’s come a long ways. And he’s only a sophomore. And we’re playing a sophomore and two freshmen a lot of minutes out there against the No. 12 team in the country and they didn’t back down. Colin Hawkins, big-body kid, he’s got a chance to be really good. Jacob Hudson, another freshman who could match some athleticism, had some finishes at the rim.
“So as long as Coach Barnes or Bryan Lentz or those guys don’t call Buddy Simmons and give him a big NIL deal, I hope I can keep him because he’s a good player. Hopefully (his success) doesn’t get out too much because then you got to fight that battle, of these guys stealing our players.”
