Tennessee basketball took care of business against Syracuse in the SEC-ACC Challenge on Tuesday night, routing the Orange 96-70 in Knoxville.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes met with the media and discussed the strong play of Cade Phillips, turning defense into offense and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
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On Tennessee’s paint touches and offensive rebounds after emphasizing those areas in practice on Monday
“Early I thought we were a little bit quick to pull the three. Had a poor start shooting the three. But it’s important that we get there and obviously rebounding is a key, because we really thought they’d show us some zone, which they did. Maybe thought we would see a little bit more than we did. We didn’t want that to slow us down from getting to the offensive glass. I thought our pace early to get down to floor was really good for us, but that was good. But it’s important that we do try to get those paint touches and, obviously, when you’re not shooting the ball, the way we started the game, it’s really imperative that we come up with some offensive rebounds.”
On Tennessee making floor spacing work with Felix Okpara and Cade Phillips on the floor together
“Well, Cade can play all over the court, really. And the more and more he’s out there, you guys are watching him develop right in front of you, where he’s feeling more and more at ease and doing some things. And I think offensively, the fact that those guys have competed against each other from Day 1, since Felix got here, all summer, I’ve said before they didn’t get any rest (during the offseason). They had to play every almost every rep. And the fact we mixed the lineup the way we have done, I think they’re comfortable playing together.”
On Cade Phillips and Jordan Gainey being productive off the bench for Tennessee
“Well, I do, I think it’s really valuable in the fact that Jordan has been great. And I really I think when Cam (Carr) gets back, we’re hoping by the time we roll into conference play that we really have a really 10-man rotation. We’ve got 10 scholarship players, we hope we can work that out, where we can maybe sustain some things a little bit longer. But that will be determined by our players and their development as they continue to grow. And I look at Jordan as a starter. I thought Igor (Milicic) really was locked in tonight. He got himself in some foul trouble, but we miss him when he’s (not) out there. He has become really a terrific offensive rebounder for us. But Cade comes in and I think he brings us a different look. And, again, the more he’s out there (the better he will be). Jordan, I thought, was really key in the second half, so I thought him getting aggressive, getting back, getting downhill, the pressure on the lane was important to us because we didn’t want to bog down. I thought that ‘Z’ (Zakai Zeigler) came out, (Gainey) kept us moving.”
On Tennessee shooting 2-for-15 from the 3-point line in the first half, then 8-for-14 in the second half
“We probably should’ve been 2-for-10 (in the first Half), probably. I know three or four off the top of my head that I know we just got anxious with. It’s a fine, where we really want our guys to play free. I know how hard we work. I know how well we can shoot the ball. I was a little worried today because I was sitting watching us in shootaround and, man, we were making shots. I mean, I’m like, well, I don’t know if I like this right now or not. I hope we haven’t used them up. And I felt like that in the first half because all the guys were (missing). That’s something, I’m sitting here watching them a lot. But they listened. We came out and started talking about, again, paint touches, getting there, inside out, trying to get better looks. And we do feel at some point in time, we’re going to make some, we’re going to start making some shots. But I thought you got to give Syracuse a lot of credit early, I thought they really guarded. I thought they were very physical. I thought they did to us what we like to do to people. They were blowing up some of our screening actions. We weren’t setting good screens early at all, anywhere, really, with any consistency. And with that, they were just like Chaz, pushing him out. I mean, there were gaps. I was watching some film at halftime. There were gaps like that. You do that, you can’t, you’re not going to get free. But we did a little bit better job to start the second half screening.”
On Cade Phillips maxing out in his role, what the role is
“A lot of credit to coach Polinksy. He watched Cade, knew him and evaluated him at a level. What he saw in Cade was a big-time competitive spirit and a guy that was willing to get better. He played football for a long time. Both he and Bishop are football guys. I think their mentality, Bishop competes when he is out there just like Cade. They are competitors. Obviously, we knew that if he would work and get better, like a year ago, I can sit here today and say I wish we would have redshirted him a year ago. That was the plan actually coming in. But a year ago this time our guys came and said we are going to have to have him. The fact is he puts his time in. When you do the process, when you can really understand — and what you said is a key thing with guys early understanding they have to bring something early then their games get expanded — but we have to count on certain things with Cade or Bishop or whoever. It gets down to the more consistency you get doing certain things, you earn trust. Not only I think with your coaches and your teammates, but most importantly with yourself. You realize I have this down now and I can take another step. We have watched Cade do that.”
On the key for Phillips finding consistency
“He’s had some games where he’s done this and then he’s gone backwards. And I tell him you, there’s a lot of guys that can’t handle success. And we talk about getting better every day, the process that we believe in it. You gotta go through, but it’s human nature. I’m sure these guys on social media and people really start telling them this, that and whatever. You can’t let down.
I mean, I don’t think we’ve got— don’t think there’s very many players that play the game that can afford to let down. I mean, if they want to be good. Because you start letting down and not going at it with everything you have every day with the idea you got to get better. Where these guys want to eventually be when they’re done with college, they all have a long way to go. And to get there, it’s a part of that process is learning how to make yourself work even when you have success. How can I continue to get better? And it’s hard because it’s human nature when you start feeling good about yourself. Now, I’ve told him before, actually, before I think it might have been not this game but the game before. I asked him if he knew anything about a proud peacock and what a proud peacock becomes. We know that it becomes a feather duster. So I said, if what you did today is big to you, that means you haven’t done anything to get better. I don’t think Cade is any different than anybody else. I’ve seen it happen with a lot of players. They go through it and you ask them why? You talk about it afterwards, but they will always have that one answer that coaches hate to hear— I don’t know. And that’s the question you’re always trying to figure out, that they do know why there is slippage and inconsistency.”
On turning defense into offense
“Well, so far, this group has been good at it. We’ve been able to create some offense with our defense and not have to go down, obviously, play against a set defense all the time. They did that to us. I mean, they got out a couple of times in transition because of our turnovers, and you can’t guard turnovers. You can’t guard poor shot selection. You can’t guard an unbalanced court. And we’re keeping our flow offensively but when we can get active with deflections and break it loose, we need those points. I mean, it’s important if you get some of those and get out and run and try to get— I don’t think we got any or we really got out and ran hard enough on the wings tonight. I do think we had a couple of chances before we could’ve had a pipe run, but we didn’t see it. But we’ve got to get consistently better at that and, obviously, hoping that our defense can create some offense for us.”
On the points of emphasis for Cade Phillips over the offseason
“Well, he’s not afraid to work. We know that. So that’s something that we didn’t have to challenge him about that. We challenged him about one, improving his shot and developing a game offensively. And I do think this, as time goes on, and he really works at shooting the ball. And when he gets comfortable, he’ll do it. But it’s gotta be on his terms, and we’re gonna continue to work at that with him. You know, he’s very athletic. He’s wiry strong. I worried tonight coming in that we were gonna have to — and they started the game with exactly what I told the guys they would do, trying to bounce him, or Felix, or Igor to the rim like Norchad Omier did with us in the Baylor game. We were concerned about that, knowing that he’s a good player out of the post, too.
“But Cade is gonna do everything he can. He’s got a little bit of (Zakai Zeigler) in him, a little stubborn streak where when he messes up, he wants to come back and fix it right away, where Z gets himself in trouble because he’s so hard on himself. Cade’s got that, and I don’t know if I should say stubborn. It’s probably more of a competitive spirit about it. They don’t wanna mess up. They wanna get it right. And when they know they’re not doing what they’re capable of, they have a tendency to try to do too much. And Cade was doing that earlier in the year. He was trying to do some of that, but I think the more I watch him, he’s comfortable, starting to settle in, but like all of us, we’ve all gotta get better. But I know he’s gonna do his part.”
On his thoughts on the job Adrian Autry is doing in his second year as Syracuse’s head coach:
“I will say this. We as coaches, we’re breaking down the scout, first thing that Gregg Polinsky — and Greg’s been around this game a long, long time — he came in, and first thing he said to me, he said, ‘you can tell coach Autry has really gotten comfortable with who he is and how he wants to play.’ He said, ‘they’re a much, much better man-defensive team right now.’ And I think he’s doing his part. They’re playing more man than Jim (Boehiem) would play, you know. Still play the zone zone some. I mean, people wouldn’t know, I mean, we have a zone, too. We just don’t use it that much. And I think that he has decided that they’re gonna guard. I thought they guarded us as well as anybody’s guarded us all year. I mean, I thought they guarded it.
“You know, it’s really interesting. Back when I got my first coaching job a long time ago, I went to a lot of people that I really respected, and every one of those guys told me it’s gonna take you five years. Five years to figure out exactly how you think you wanna play this game. And they all said, you better hope you get five years. And I know this. They’ve got a guy there at Syracuse that loves that university. He knows what he’s doing. He’s only gonna continue to get better at what he does. And the fact is, I can look at him now, and I think I can see his conviction of what he believes in on the court, and they do it well.
“You think about it. He comes into the game tonight, losing a guy (JJ Starling) that averages 19 points a game. Now, I’m going to tell you, when they told me he wasn’t playing, I didn’t like it. I really didn’t because we had prepared so hard to guard that. And I’m sitting there thinking, you know, somebody’s gonna have a chance to do some things, maybe play more minutes. But I can tell you this, from his perspective, I know what he was going through, like, 19 points are 19 points. How are we gonna generate them? And I thought their game plan was sound, doing what they were doing.
“He’s a good coach. I’ll tell you, he’s a really good coach. And I would say this, thinking about my second year in coaching; he’s lucky that he’s got a great mentor in Jim Boeheim, who I know is dying to see him continue to carry on that program and what they’ve built there, and that’s a great thing for him. I was lucky my second year that I got to go to Providence and fortunate to have Dave Gavitt in the Big East office there where I got to spend time with Dave and help me through some things. Not that Red Autrey needs any of that, but I look back and that was helpful to me. But they’ve got the right guy there and he’s gonna get the job done. There’s no question in my mind. He’s getting the job done and he’ll continue to do what he needs to do.”
