Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes met with the media on Thursday afternoon in his final press conference before next week’s season opener against Gardner Webb.
The Vols enter Barnes’ 10th season as head coach ranked No. 12 nationally and picked to finish third in the SEC a year after winning the conference crown outright.
On Thursday, Barnes discussed how his team has responded from its shaky performance against Indiana, where the Vols’ team defense is off and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
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On how Tennessee has responded in practice this week, following the Indiana scrimmage on Sunday
“Good. I do know know they know we did some things that we talked about cleaning up from the Davidson scrimmage. And we obviously in the Indiana game, we ball-screen coverage wasn’t what we needed it to be. And one point we were picking up out beyond the zone, which I thought was just a motion, where we were really want to play hard and do things the right way, but we didn’t think the game the way we needed to. And then I thought we let the fact that we missed some shots that we know we’re capable of making get to us a little bit.
“But overall, it was a great experience for us. And I think as a coach, the main thing is that you’re able to take that and you teach from it. You get to have a chance to do a lot of things to show guys that you can correct, that can be corrected. And it’s the self-inflicted wounds that really hurt you the most. They’ve been they’ve been good, but they really normally are always good with it.”
On if he felt like Chaz Lanier was pressing in the Indiana exhibition, playing in front of fans for the first time at Tennessee
“I don’t know. He missed a lot of shots that we all think that, if he plays the way he’s capable of, he’s going to make them. But he’s still learning. If you look at it, with so many young guys, we talked about the guys coming back, they’ve never been out there either. Then you talk about our transfer portal guys. We do have a young group in terms of being together. It’s just a whole new experience for Zakai. I mean, a year ago, he settled in and knew how to play with his teammates. He’s trying to figure these guys out. They’re trying to figure him out. But as long as they continue to work hard and I think Chaz, it’s going to be a different for him. But we know what he’s capable of and we’re going to keep encouraging to do what we know that he needs to do to help the team.”
On if Tennessee’s offensive struggle against Indiana was just missing shots or other mistakes being made
“Well, we’ve got to make shots. I mean, there’s no doubt. But with that said, I’ve always said to our guys, we’ve got to find a way to win when we’re not making shots. And we had high-quality shots, but we didn’t make them. That’s that’s part of it. But you’ve got to find a way. And we made a ton of mistakes defensively. But we did enough that it was a two-point game. And now we did not execute in the last two minutes of the game. We made poor decisions and and really got rushed and didn’t do the things that we had talked about. And, again, that can be corrected if everybody understands it. There’s got to be better communication from player to player in that situation because we got what we wanted on the court and Zakai felt like he had them in what we needed to do. But it wasn’t executed. And so, again, that’s why I wish we played more of those games because we’d be so much better before the opener if we had more of those opportunities.”
On how many of Zakai Zeigler’s shots against Indiana were within the flow of the offense
“Well, he had some that were, some that weren’t. And knows it. Again, he’s trying to figure it out too. And what happens where he is right now, and he has been there before. It happened a year ago when he first came on the court back in in Maui, when he started playing. And things weren’t happening and he feels, because he’s such a competitive player, that he’s got to go try to make something happen. And because guys aren’t where they need to be, aren’t doing the things that we expect from them. And that’s just his competitive spirit. And it’s something that you don’t want to take away from it. But it’s something that, again, he’ll learn from it like he always does. He’ll make the adjustments, but he knows that he took some he shouldn’t have taken.”
On if they knew Felix Okpara had as much offensive game as he does when they signed him
“No. We didn’t know, but we knew coming in— I mean, there’s a lot that you’ve learned when you are around a person every day. And with Felix, we realized how hard he works. You hope you know that, but he’s an extremely hard worker. He’s can do a lot, but he really works at it. And he’s someone that we feel comfortable getting it to. But he’s like anyone. He’s got to know his space on the court. But we didn’t do a good job early of getting him involved the way we know that we need to.”
On if they’ve had conversations with Zakai Zeigler trying to get him to fight the urge to do too much
“I think that’s just gonna naturally happen with him because of his DNA. But he knows and, like I said, we need other players around him that he can figure out where they’re going to be, what they’re going to do. What they can do, but they’ve gotta be consistent doing that. And that’s what we haven’t— and I wouldn’t expect I mean, I certainly don’t want to say we’ve peaked right now because we’re not. I went back as I do every year and looked at some games at the beginning of the year. To be honest with you, we weren’t a very good team in Maui last year. We weren’t. And we came back and played against Carolina, played maybe the worst half of the year. Then the second half was the big turning point for us. And I think a lot of teams go through that. You hope you can get through it without losing games. But the fact is, this team has a chance to be good and we’ll continue to grow and take care of details. And that’s what it gets down to. It’s just simply understanding the game, what is supposed to be played, and taking care of the minor details.”
On how he felt about the players at the four-spot against Indiana
“They played hard. That’s the one thing, I thought they played hard. I thought Jahmai did a really good job. And, again, I didn’t think he was rushed by anything. But when he was at the four, he did a good job doing what he does, defending in there against bigger guys. But I thought that Cade and Igor were, they were anxious, which I think you expected. I don’t think there’s any question about that. But I think too with what we’ve gone through with the film and we haven’t been able to get through the whole film because the first day an hour and a half or so to get through 10 minutes just because there’s so much teaching that was being taught there. But we’re not surprised. They’re a little bit anxious, but we believe in them. We know they can get it done. And it’s the same thing. They’ve just gotta get better.”
On how the defense performed against Indiana compared to where he thought it was at
“Overall, the effort was good. You know, we still, again, there’s not one part of what we do that we don’t have to get better. But we did play hard, and that’s really, as bad as we were on the other end, it kept us where we needed to be within striking distance there.
“There’s a lot of things, you know, getting our hands up. We did get our hands on a lot of deflections, but we didn’t convert like we needed to there. And we had chances to maybe get some easy baskets, but we didn’t take advantage of it. We didn’t run the court the way we have to. And every team in the country wants some easy baskets. No team wants to go down and play against a set defense every time. When we had a chance to really get out and get something like that, we didn’t take advantage of it.”
On the progress Igor Milicic Jr. has made since he showed up
“Understanding the speed. I mean, he hasn’t played, and he would tell you the speed’s different in terms of every day. We think he’ll continue to settle down. He’s got so much more he can do. And it’s just a matter of him understanding what we need him to do first, and then we can expand his role because his role will expand. There’s no question about it because he’s got the ability to do it. But the biggest thing for all the young guys and the new guys in the program, is understanding what we have to do on the defensive end. And most of them, when they come in, their first thought is offense, offense, offense. That’ll take care of itself if we can get the other end where we need it to be.”
On how much it is on the guards to make sure they’re getting the ball to Felix Okpara more, compared to Okpara making sure he gets in good position to receive the ball
“It always goes both ways. I mean, they’ve gotta know, he’s gotta get his space on the court. They gotta know when to deliver it, how to deliver it. So it goes both ways. Same thing on the perimeter when you’re screening. Any kind of screen you set up, if both guys don’t do their job, it won’t work.”
On where sophomore guard Cameron Carr is at
“Well, again, it all starts with him defensively. And I do know this: I think he’s more focused in the last two weeks than he’s ever been since he’s been here. I think he’s starting to realize just how hard it is to play the game the right way. But, again, he’s a player that we’re gonna keep going with him because we know he can do it. But he’s learning a lot about the game that he didn’t know. He probably thought he knew more than he did. And I would say that about anybody really in the program, but the older guys have been through it. They know what we’re looking for. Cam just needs to stack days on top of days where he’s doing the things that we need him to do. And then, again, he’s a guy that you can expand his role.”
On what he knows about Gardner-Webb
“They’re gonna play really fast. They’re well coached, extremely well coached. They got a new coach there, but they’re gonna work hard. They’re gonna really try to score quick. I think (they were) one of the top teams in the country last year. They can almost play with a 17-second shot clock. They get down the floor, they’re gonna shoot it quick, they know what they’re doing. They know how they wanna play. They’ll spread you out. Really good cutting team. If you turn your head, you get caught looking, they’re gonna take advantage of it.”
