Tennessee basketball knows its NCAA Tournament fate, landing as the two-seed in the Midwest Region and facing off against Saint Peter’s in its first round matchup.
If the Vols get past the Peacocks they’ll face one of three teams— seven-seed Texas or 10-seeds Virginia and Colorado State.
Following the announcement, Tennessee coach Rick Barnes met with the media and joked about the possibility of facing his old team, bouncing back from a poor SEC Tournament showing and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
More From RTI: Tennessee Basketball To Face Saint Peter’s In First Round Of NCAA Tournament
On his initial thoughts on Tennessee being a No. 2 in the Midwest Region, facing No. 15 Saint Peter’s
“I just told the team and really we’ve got to look at it like this is the Charlotte Invitational right now, us, Saint Peter’s and then we’ll go from there. But, one, I really, I congratulate our guys because you don’t ever take this time of year for granted. And the fact that they’ve worked hard all year to put themselves in a position again to earn the seed they’ve gotten. And I think they’ll be excited to play. There’s no doubt in my mind they’re going to be ready to play and excited to play, but you don’t take it for granted. And we’re blessed to have this opportunity. We’ve got to really try to make the most of it.”
On his message to the team after Tennessee’s SEC Tournament loss to Mississippi State and how they’ve bounced back
“I’ve told them a lot of stories. I’ve got a lot of stories I can tell. But you look at college basketball this weekend, teams that won the regular season, I don’t know, I think only Connecticut won their postseason tournament. And you go through it, I go back the year we went to the Final four, we lost in the first round in the Big 12 Tournament to Coach (Bob) Knight and Texas Tech. And I remember him grabbing me and he said, Hey man, this is good for you. He said now go win a national championship. We got there (to the Final Four), we didn’t win it. But again, I can keep on, stories after stories. But it’s college basketball and we are where we are right now and I think we know who we are and what we need to do. And it’s a whole new season. It’s a postseason, but it’s a new season for 68 teams that all of them were playing for a chance to win a national championship on Monday.”
On if Saint Peter’s gets the attention of Tennessee players because of the run it went on as a No. 15 seed two years ago, going to the Elite Eight
Well, that’s what I told our team. I said if I were at Saint Peter’s right now, it’d be the first thing I’d put up right there. Say look what happened, it can be done. And we know it can be done now at every level. I mean, No. 16 seeds beat a No. 1 or No. 15 beat a No. 2. It’s about our focus and getting ready. And you got to go out and play great basketball from here on out. Because if you’re playing this time of year, you’re playing good basketball and even teams like ourselves who lost two in a row. But you look at that board when they put it up, there’s no easy games for anybody. I don’t think anybody thinks it’s an easy one. Because if you’re playing now you’re playing good basketball.”
On Tennessee winning the SEC Tournament two years ago then losing in the second round, then losing in SEC Tournament quarterfinals and going to Sweet Sixteen
“I hope so. What’s interesting is Zakai’s brother playing for Saint Peter’s. So an interesting little sideline there. But the fact is we’ve got some experience, guys have have been there and I think that will help, certainly hope so. And I said last year, really proud. We talked about it yesterday with this group. With Zakai down last year, how hard those guys fought to get where we got to the Sweet 16. And I expect this team to have the same attitude to get there and hopefully further, but we got to take care of round one and against the team that again, if they’re in it, they’re capable.”
On if he saw that Texas is the seven-seed and a potential Round of 32 matchup
“I saw that. I honestly, you’re sitting there thinking, well, is it gonna be Texas or Clemson?”
On if it’s a reward to play close to home
“Yeah, I think so. (If) We could have won out, who knows, maybe we could have worked our way up. But I tell our guys, I don’t care where you start. Everything gets to match ups and what you got to play and everybody, I mean, every game’s tough. There’s a lot of scrambling going on right now. Coaches making calls to find out everything they can. I like the fact that we’re getting to play Friday (Thursday). I think that we had a good workout today and trying to stay on our routine as much as we can. But I think we’ll have a good lot of Vol people there with us.
And I told our team, we did in Nashville too, and I said, we got to go and not disappoint anybody and mostly ourselves by knowing that when it’s all said and done that we know that we played to our ability.”
On leaning on veterans to explain what the tournament is like to guys like Dalton who haven’t played in the tournament
“I mean CBS is with us right now, you know, they got the crew back there. They’ve been able to, I think you guys were invited, but he said (SID Alex Schwartz) y’all didn’t wanna come back there (joke). It’s different, as you know, all eyes are on this tournament right now. But for some of them it’s going to be new and they’re gonna have to get out there. And I hope our older guys are steady enough to help those guys because they’re going to have some anxiety obviously, bit anxious about it, but we’ve dealt with that throughout the year here. We’re just gonna have to do it again.”
On the SEC being tough and preparing them for the tournament
“Well, again, this league is incredible. I mean, a couple weeks ago they were talking about nine teams, maybe 10 that were all still in the mix. And the fact that we ended up with what we did is remarkable because we all beat up on each other at the end of the year. And some teams got on the back end of that, where schedules played out differently. But this league has improved so much and I’m really happy for our coaches in this league because I know how hard we all battled and work and the players in the league. I’m happy for our league and I think that people are hopefully understanding that this league does play great basketball and it’s gotten better every year.”
On Zakai Zeigler’s time sidelined helping him see the entire game
“Well, someone asked me last week, when did I feel like Zakai was back? And I actually said, I thought during the second half of the North Carolina game. I thought he was really pressing, trying to do way too much. But I thought the second half of the North Carolina game was when he found himself and since that time, I think he’s really, he had a couple halves that was not characteristic of him and only one game I can think of where I didn’t think he was very good from start to finish. But he’s improved so much and seeing the game and I think he’ll continue to do that as he moves forward. But he’s a guy that I, I mean, think about where he was a year ago this time and where he is today. He’ll be, I’m going to have to make sure he is not overly amped up because I know he’s gonna be excited to get out there and go after it.”
