Tennessee basketball capped off an unbeaten November by knocking off UT Martin 78-35 on on Wednesday evening in Knoxville.
The Vols held UT Martin to the lowest scoring total in Thompson-Boling Arena history while dominating the Skyhawks despite a quiet shooting night.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes discussed the Vols’ stout defensive performance, Darlinstone Dubar getting back into the fold and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
More From RTI: Three Quick Takeaways As Tennessee Takes Down UT Martin On Thanksgiving Eve
On what he liked from Tennessee center Felix Okpara against UT Martin
“His rebounding, basically. But again, love to see him get out and run when he runs like that. Playing against a team that plays out on the court, away from the basket. But I thought he had a really good bounce back from the Bahamas tournament. And in fact I think it was his first career double-double. He and Igor (Milicic) and Jahmai (Mashack) both, great job on the glass. We knew a game like this, long possessions, a lot of shots thrown up at the end (of the shot clock), game with long rebounds. And when the game got going, I thought our pursuit of the ball was obviously what we want.”
On this roster coming together quickly despite having so many players
“Well, you know what, I think it’s a compliment to them as a group of guys, that we’ve got a very unselfish group. We still have some guys that are learning. We’ve got a long way to go, to be honest. The whole deal was we got beat the other night in the last half against Baylor by 12. We felt like we hadn’t put together 40 minutes of really solid defense all year. And that was our aim today, to try to go out and do that against a team that we think is really well coached. We knew they would be in long possessions, which is difficult to stay with it. And then tough shots went up at the end, trying to run those rebounds down. As a coach, we have been proud of these guys. It just starts with our older guys. I mean, the leadership. We were in the field room the night before or on the court the day of, talking about it. Hopefully, these younger guys understand how much of Zakai and Shack and I think Jordan Gainey, how much they put in the the scouting report. Because I think he really trusts our assistant coaches for the job that they do, to break down teams, what we need to do. But it’s really a compliment to them because they want to be good. They like each other, which is a major thing. They’ve all had their ups and downs, but they’ve never wavered on sticking together.”
On what he likes from Darlinstone Dubar so far, what he has given Tennessee since coming back and how much progress he has made
“Well, again, we need him to continue to improve defensively. And I think the more he plays, his stamina will continue to improve. Offensively, we think he’s a terrific shooter. He’ll have to keep figuring out when to and when not to. And understand how to stay in the flow of his teammates. It will be game to game because every game takes on its own identity. But for a guy that was really not having a lot of practice the last month, impressive. And we know he can rebound. He proved that to us down in the Bahamas. And he proved to us that he’s competitive. I mean, trying to guard (Baylor’s Norchad) Omier is as hard as anything he’ll have to go against all year, and he fought hard. And I’m excited because we know he can continue to, like all of us, get better.”
On Jordan Gainey developing as a backup point guard
“Well going against the Z, Bishop, those guys every day in practice. They’re competitive with each other. Jordan, he’s become probably our best, I thought Shack was really controlled today with his drives. Jordan’s getting better at getting out and running, playing with force to the basket. Bishop is not afraid to do that. Zakai, again, is continuing to pick his spots and know when he needs to go because there’s so much attention given to him. But Jordan’s overall improvement when you think about how far he’s come on the defensive end, I mean, he’s locked in. Like I said, right there with Shack and Z have learned how to do and helping teammates and then on the offensive end, we really believe he’s got the ability to be as explosive from the perimeter as Chaz. And we need Chaz to play with that kinda force too.”
On what allowed them to play a complete defensive game
“When we talk about it, we’re talking about staying with our principles is the main thing regardless of the score. We’re still trying to achieve the things that we talk about with deflections our gap integrity, white line integrity, trying to do all those types of things and not just float regardless of what the score might be in a game. And activity on the ball is important. Post guys getting up in touch. All the details that go into what we have to do and stay connected. And tonight, I really thought there was a conscience effort to do that. And, again, they’re a well coached team. They really are. They run good actions. We knew they would shoot, I don’t know how many they ended up shooting, but we know we’re going to play against teams in our league that are gonna shoot a lot of threes. We gotta be able to guard the three, but we also gotta be able to help each other. But when you stretch it out there, you’re opening up the floor in some ways. So it’s just everyone staying connected and understanding that we’ve got to believe in what we’re doing at all five spots.”
On if he anticipated Tennessee being this good of an offensive rebounding team
“We talked to our team the other night. If we’re going to put teams in long possessions, and that happens. You look at our base of play. I’m not sure where it’s ranked, not that I really care. But we have always tried to play fast. And so you think about we’re asking our guys to lock in, defensively, knowing if we do what we’re capable of we’re going to spend some time down there. Then you come down and if you turn it over or take bad shots or you don’t get good shots. We know we’re going to go back down there and play, but we don’t want to play against set defenses. I don’t think anyone does. So it starts with a transition defense, but I think we’ve got some defense. I think we’ve got some skilled guys. When we’re locked in, we’ve got guys that can do a lot of different things.
“If we’re going to shoot it quick, we’ve got to rebound. If we’re going to shoot the ball quick, we’ve got to get to it. If we can score within three seconds, we want to score it, and that might be a wide-open three to the right guy at the right time. And so we shoot it, we have to pursue our misses. There’s no doubt with the three-point shot, it can’t be; shooting, hope it goes, because there was times tonight where their defense, the pick-up point was at 17, 16, 15-feet, and we’re trying to continue to collapse, move the ball so we could create some of those rebounding seams as opposed to just letting them be set in position to block us out. So, again, whether it was just an over and back, moving the ball, just trying to create rebounding seams.”
On where he thinks the team is compared to what it could be:
“Well, I don’t know if I ever know what’s happening this time of year. I mean, you don’t. I do know this. This group of guys, they’ve worked hard. I go back to Felix (Okpara) and Cade (Phillips) all summer. I don’t think they ever got a rest because J.P. (Estrella) had been out all summer. The reps those guys got all summer, I think it’s played big dividends for us.
“And then you look at the leadership of our older guys and we’ve never I don’t think had — maybe our first year. I don’t remember that — but 11 scholarship players. This team, we’ve never had the entire team together yet because J.P. was never in full swing. Cam (Carr) was moving forward the way we wanted to, and these next three weeks and a half, four weeks for him are critical. But he gets hurt. We think that when he comes back, if Bishop (Boswell) will continue to grow, we’ve got a really solid 10-man rotation that no doubt, at this point, the biggest surprise is where I do think all 10 of those guys right now that are scholarship players understand what we’ve gotta be able to do on the defensive end. That would probably be my biggest surprise because Bishop has proven — every guy has proven they can do it. It’s a matter of being consistent and continuing to get better.”
