Rick Barnes is a yeller at Tennessee basketball practices. But that was not the tone Barnes struck when he walked into the Vols’ locker room after an “awful” first half that saw Tennessee fall behind 13 points against rival Vanderbilt.
Barnes was stern but to the point. Relaying key messages to his team before a stellar second half where Tennessee climbed out of the hole and earn an 81-76 victory in a needed win. Here’s what happened in the locker room that helped spark the second half run.
“I normally go in and talk about things and talk about some offensive stuff,” Barnes said postgame. “I talked about a mindset. I said this time of year you either wilt or you grow. I said, which one are you going to do?”
Before Barnes made it in the locker room, Tennessee assistant coaches talked to the team about the details of its first half shortcomings. The Vols were pitiful defensively in the first half, allowing 44 points on 55% shooting the field while the Commodores rebounded 28% of their misses.
Tennessee had a lack of attention to detail to the scouting report, had breakdowns and got dominated inside.
“Coach Rod and Coach Gainey came in and (said) execute whatever,” Tennessee point guard Zakai Zeigler said. “If we make the call, our coaches spend a lot of time scouting for us and pretty much giving the formula out there when we go out on the court. They’re not telling us that just because. We’re listening to it for a reason. It was really just us executing not just on offense but on defense too.”
Senior guard Jahmai Mashack spoke up, challenging his teammates to pick things up defensively and saying they were playing out of character.
“I thought Jahmai was good at halftime,” Barnes said.
“We were just communicating and saying that we just need to be us,” Tennessee guard Chaz Lanier said. “That we weren’t being us in the first half, following the schemes and the scout that the coaches had prepared us to do. Just being us.”
Tennessee was much better defensively in the second half, holding the Commodores to 32 points. It was dominant but they made Vanderbilt hit tough shots to score, something they didn’t do in the second half.
More From RTI: Everything Rick Barnes Said Following Tennessee Basketball’s Comeback Win Over Vanderbilt
Barnes talked to the team last, challenging his team’s mindset after they played their worst half of the season.
“I would just say he had a calmer tone,” Lanier said. “It was really just the message that he was trying to get across to us. … It really resonated with everybody and we came out and handled business.”
Tennessee’s 10th-year head coach didn’t yell and scream but he did have a pointed message for one guy— Zakai Zeigler.
“I said some things to him I don’t normally say to challenge him a little bit,” Barnes said. “I said, ‘who’s getting respect right now and who’s getting disrespected?’ I said, come on man, you can’t, the things he was allowed to happen out there that he wasn’t doing.”
Barnes says Zeigler plays his best when he’s mad and Zeigler played his best in the second half. After failing to score in the first half, Zeigler scored 22 points on seven-of-nine shooting from the field. He matched his four first half assists with four more in the second half.
“I was on some I’m going to prove him wrong type of mindset,” Zeigler said. “Alright, I’m going to show you. If this is what you think, don’t worry about. Him saying that, it little a little fire under me and I wouldn’t say back against the wall but I knew what he was thinking in his head and I knew what he was trying to get at. I just had to change my mindset and do what I do for the team.”
Zeigler was best with the game on the line. He scored, or assisted on a Tennessee basket in five of its final six possessions. Two of those baskets gave Tennessee the lead and one extended the Vols lead to four points with 19 seconds to play.
Tennessee’s elite second half secured them a needed win and helped them avoid a disastrous 0-2 week before its midweek open date.
