Tennessee basketball assistant coach Rod Clark met with the local media on Monday afternoon before the Vols host a surging South Carolina team at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center on Tuesday night.
Clark discussed where South Carolina has improved compared to last season, how challenging it is to defend Dalton Knecht and much more. Here’s everything Clark said on Monday afternoon.
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On the biggest difference in South Carolina this season under second-year coach Lamont Paris
“I think that they have their identity. You could tell that their foundation is set in stone now. They guard really tough as they did last year. They just kind of didn’t have the bodies and the guys that understood the system (last year). Now those guys are like a well-oiled machine. Meechie Johnson is a returner. He’s a really good defender. Ta’Lon Cooper has been a big acquisition for them in the portal. He’s a really good defender. And then the freshman there, the Colin Murray-Boyles kid, he gives a lot of energy to them defensively. But you know, they’re just tough man. They don’t do a ton of switching. They get through everything. You could tell that they hold their identity on toughness, which is something that we’ve been able to do in this league. And seeing them do it, think that kind of leads to a lot of their success.”
On how he would describe Santiago Vescovi’s role in Tennessee’s offense this season
“The thing is, has it changed as far as what we need him to do? Not really. The volume has just been down, you know what I mean? Just because we have a lot of guys that can score the ball as well now. And I think he’s been taking in stride and figuring it out all year. But last game he took open shots, he took drives and made plays and that’s what we need him to do. We need him ready all times when he receives an opportunity to catch a shoot or he’s catching and driving a close out. That’s when he’s best. And he does a good job of driving and kicking and also finishing for us.”
On if he feels like Santiago Vescovi is turning down shots this season
“He’s turning down a few that we would like him to take. We want him to become a little bit more aggressive in that area. But I know there were two shots against Vandy that he turned down and I’m like, Santi. And then he drove him and he laid the ball up and he drove one and made a kick for a three. So apparently he knows what he’s doing a lot more than I do. So I just kind of let him do his thing.”
On if Tennessee expects a low-possession game against a South Carolina team that plays at a slower pace, if there’s a comparison to a non-conference game in terms of style
“The the easiest one I can recall is Wisconsin, which (Lamont Paris is) a former Wisconsin assistant. I think that the balance that we’ve been trying to find this year is when we play teams that want to play low-possession games, how do we dictate tempo and still play the way that we want to play? And I think your best example of that was last game. First half (at Vanderbilt), we kind of fell into playing low-possession game, how the other team wanted to play. Second half, we got out and we ran and we shot the ball better, we got easier opportunities, we got transition layups, which is when we’re at our best. So we have to find a balance of when we go into those games, how do we play our game without making it a low-possession game? Because we want more possessions. We feel like that’s when we’re best right now. We’re getting the ball up and we’re taking a lot of open threes and we’re getting a lot of drives and putting pressure on the rim. So we got to do a better job of that and that’s what we plan to do this game.”
On what Tennessee can do to speed South Carolina up and make it a higher possession game
“Do what we do, honestly. Do what we do. What we do every day in practice. I think that we have to be really good at ball screens with Meechie Johnson. Because he’s a guy who likes to turn the corner and get downhill. He does a really good job of that. With Ta’Lon Cooper, we have to do a really good job of crowding him and corralling him in ball screens and making him see bodies because he’s really good in his space. He’s been one of the best point guards in the league over the last few weeks and I think that he’s the biggest difference in their program and why they’re having a lot of success. Because he does a good job of just controlling the floor and handling their team. And then the biggest thing is we have to make sure that we block out because offensively, on the glass, they do good of a job as anybody in the league. So we got to make sure we’re really stout when it comes to that.”
On if Josiah-Jordan James is a Tennessee player that needs to see a shot go in
“Yes. Obviously, it’s my scout this week and some of our scout prep was going on upstairs. And I wanted to take the time to actually work with him, rather than go up there. Just because — not that the scout doesn’t matter, it’s not important; it’s extremely important — making sure that he’s in the right mind frame of getting into these games. And that that’s a little bit more important right now. I think Jo is going to be be fine.”
“If you guys think about it this year, every single player on our team has went through a spurt where they didn’t play well. Dalton went through a spurt. He didn’t play well, Santi did. Jo is now. Zakai did early in the year. And we’ve all still banded together and found a way to win. So the thing that I’m excited about, about our team is we haven’t played yet where everybody is clicking at the same time, which means that we haven’t peaked, which means that we still have upside. So that’s the exciting part about us. He’s gonna get out of this rut. The fact that he can go in a game and not score and still be plus-10 at the end of the game shows his value to us. So that’s what we need and we lean on.”
On how difficult it is to guard Dalton Knecht
“Very hard. I see him carve up Jahmai Mahack a lot of days and that’s not an easy thing to do. And Shack obviously wins a lot of those battles. But, no, he’s a tough cover. He’s one of those guys that, let’s say he’s in a ball screen, okay. If you go over the top and stay on his hip he’s going to drive downhill and he’s going to give your big guy problems, which is a mismatch. Okay. If you go under, he’s going to stop behind it and he’s probably going to shoot it. If you go over the top and you trail him and the big is just up enough and he drops back too far, he’ll just stop and shoot a pull up and he’s six-foot-six and a half. So he can go over the top of you and finish at the rim too. So it’s kind of one of those things that I put myself in a position a few times and as well as our coaching staff, it’s like, how would we prep for him? And the only thing we could think of is to double him off of ball screens or send a double at him. But he’s big enough where he can see over the defense so he can make a kick to Jonas Aidoo— who’s playing like arguably the best big in the SEC and then he makes a play. So it’s kind of one of those scenarios where, I don’t want to say lose-lose, but it’s not a lot that you can do, You just kind of got to execute a game plan, hope that it works, hope that he’s not making shots, hope that Jonas is not playing well out of the ball screens and the rest of our guys aren’t making shots. So it makes it really tough.”
On Dalton Knecht opening things up for other guys offensively
“It’s huge. It is big for us. I think right now, obviously like national writers are excited about the numbers that Dalton’s putting up and I heard someone the other day say Dalton Knecht and the Tennessee Vols. And he would tell you that that’s probably not the case. We got a lot of guys that are really effective, really gifted offensive players. When you sit and think about it, like let’s say for instance at the end of the year, Dalton is probably going be on the all league team.
Jonas is probably gonna be on the all league team. That means that every one of our starters at some point in their career have been on the all league team in this league, right? So it’s not a fact of it’s just Dalton and all these other guys standing around. Like Jonas is playing at a really high level. Zakai Zeiger is playing like one of the best point guards in the league. Santi and Josiah are guys that have won a ton of games in this league over the last few years or, I’m sorry, over their career. Period. So we’ve got a lot of different weapons. The fact that we’ve had multiple guys that have had 20-point games this year, I think speaks to the firepower that we do have. I’m excited of the fact that guys (opponents) have to key in on him when he’s playing this well because all that does is give another opportunity to another guy to go against maybe a lesser matchup or a weaker defender. Because everybody’s going put their best wing defender on Dalton. Which means that your defender that’s maybe not as good is guarding Santi Vescovi, who’s just been two time First team All-SEC for the last two years. So, yeah, it presents some matchup issues. Which is great for us.”
On what freshman forward J.P. Estrella did well in the win over Vanderbilt:
“J.P., he was physical. Obviously he’s a big, stout kid. He played really hard and that’s what we’ve been asking of him. We’ve been wanting him to replace kind of some of that physicality that Uros (Plavsic) brought in the past, and we think he’s starting to kind of grasp it and understand.
“I think of this one possession ’cause he does it all the time. When we were recruiting J.P., the biggest thing that we realized is that he had some of the best hands that we ever seen on a big guy. The possession where he got the offense rebound, he tipped it to himself and popped right back up and just shot it, was amazing. Like, freshmen don’t do that. Let alone, like, it’s guys that have been in college four or five years that don’t do that, especially big guys. So the fact that he can be that effective and bring the physicality around the rim and the touch and the scoring, it’s big for us and we need him to keep emerging.”
On what he remembers about Dalton Knecht and Jahmai Mashack playing one-on-one for the first time
“They were playing one-on-one on (Knecht’s) visit a little bit, which at first I was kind of nervous of. I thought it was gonna scare him off and he wouldn’t come here, ’cause you know, when Shack plays one-on-one, he’s not like playing around. He’s being serious. So, they kind of started a bond on his visit and it kept continuing to grow. Even in the process of him deciding after he left here, once he committed, like, I’m pretty sure Dalton told me that Shack was like the first dude to reach out to him and he was excited for him to come in. And you know, when we do one-on-one breakdowns at the beginning of every practice, they guard each other. I think for Dalton and he can tell you better than I could and I’m sure he would, prepping every week against Shack and then going out and playing against these other teams, there’s no one that’s guarded him, that guards him like Shack. Nobody. So if you can get better in practice and score on Shack, you probably gonna be all right for the game. So they’ve been a huge help for each other. They’ve made each other better every single day. You know, going on Shack, like, who is he guarding that’s probably better than Dalton Knecht most nights? Probably not gonna happen. They’ve done an incredible job just building each other up as much as all these guys have. It’s been a great thing to see.”
On Jordan Gainey getting going offensively the last couple of games and what it means to get that level of bench production
“It’s great. It’s been huge for us because Jordan’s one of those guys that puts in a lot of work, works really hard on his game, and to see him not making shots in games, it’s where the humility part comes out as a coach. Forget the game. Forget basketball. It’s like one of the things you see someone working really hard for something and they’re not quite getting what they deserve, and it’s kind of hard to watch. It makes you feel for him, ‘cause you know, those are the things we talk about, guys going through things off the court. And that’s a hard thing to grasp, especially with a guy that obviously set himself up with a lot of expectations early in the year with how he was playing. So to see him go out and not make shots and struggle, it was hard.
“But to see him bounce back how he has, it’s been great. It’s been electric for us with him coming off the bench and being instant offense, bringing that energy and, you see that he’s kind of blew two games open, being Alabama and Vandy, just from coming off (the bench with) his energy and making shots and making plays. It’s such a big boost for us and our guys and everybody can feel it. It’s huge when he comes off (the bench) and he’s making those plays and, you know, he’s coming in and he’s kind of changing the attitude a little bit where we can sub and we don’t lose anything. So if he continues to play like that, it makes us obviously, it makes our bench even stronger, makes us even deeper and it makes us more versatile.”
