Tennessee basketball remained unbeaten on the season, winning a 66-64 slugfest at Illinois behind a big performance from Jordan Gainey and other Volunteer role players.
Following the game, Illinois head coach Brad Underwood discussed the play of Jordan Gainey, late game breakdowns by the Illini and much more. Here’s everything Underwood said.
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Opening statement
“Really high level basketball game. They’re number one for a reason, and they’re good. I think stressed them. They stressed us. We got better today, even though they had two more points than us. Give them credit. They had the ball last and made the play. So much respect for Rick, the job he’s done. Everywhere he’s been along the way, they’ve always been a winner, and you know what you’re getting. That made our team better today. The game was a rock fight. I don’t know if any two teams could literally shoot it any worse in the first half. I thought that we were fortunate to be in that position at half, with Tommy playing eight or nine minutes, Bam out of the game. You know, Lanier got going in the first half, but 17 points on 17 shots, I’ll take that, you know, most every single night. But then I thought the couple of deciding things, thought Miličić on the glass was was really big. We let Gainey get going. We had a six-point lead in a stretch where we didn’t guard, what’s No. 8’s name (Darlinstone Dubar)? Anyway, he hits a three, and then we lose Gainey right off a little floppy action, and he hits a three, and we let him get his head up and get going.
But, wish I had the last five seconds over. I would have called timeout. And give Gainey credit. He made a heck of a play. But that’s where this team has to continue to grow, and I’ve got to help them grow, with communication. Ran a bad side out of bounds play, the one we always run. Didn’t execute it. And you do those in the last couple minutes, you’re gonna lose to No. 1, and we did today.”
On his perspective of the final play
“I think it’s just common sense that you want to call a timeout after a free throw so you can get your defense set. You know, we always push, like we did at the end of regulation to get there. Anytime there’s 10 seconds or under, we actually practice this, we push. We got, K.J. got fouled. So then they just flipped it. I should have called the timeout. Point blank, I should have called the timeout after K.J. made the free throw, game tied, got our defense set. We weren’t quite where we needed to be. And five seconds is a long time in a game, you know? He made he play.”
On if late game struggles were about Illinois’ youth
“That doesn’t matter. It’s that’s on me. That’s me. We’ve got to do a better job. We try to work on situations daily. It’s hard to work on all of ’em. I thought we, you know, we handled the other side of it pretty well, with K.J., with Bam. We talked about getting it in the paint, getting fouled. They did that part of it beautifully. I never want to call a timeout on offense in that situation, because I don’t want to face a set defense or a changing defense. That’s not ever worked great. But again, you’ve got to execute on both sides of it, and they did a better job than we did.”
On Illinois only turning it over 11 times
“They’re no joke now. And I may be wrong, but I think they’ve won every game by at least 15. I mean, I think they’ve beaten the brakes off people, and they do it because of their defense. And I knew it was gonna be a really ugly game offensively, or had a feeling it would be, because I think we’re really good at defense. And, you know, 11 turnovers is a pretty low number against them. But it’s still a couple that we had, you want back. We got to be able to clean those up.
“And I thought there was a couple fouls that could have been called. And I’ve never heard of that rule before, that you’ve got to be in a shooting motion if you get your arms swiped. You know, never heard of that, so I’ve got to look that one up in the book. I’ve got to send that one into [the director of officials] and see what he tells me. But they said he wasn’t … he was trying to draw a foul and not in the shooting motion, and he wasn’t gonna give him a call because of that. So I’ve never heard of that. I’ve done this 38 years. But yeah, we can’t turn it over. That ends up being a turnover late and we can’t do that.”
On what better communication looks like
“Huddling. Understanding what I’m thinking on the court, Not always having to use a timeout. Kylan (Boswell) does a great job of it for the most part. And you know, it’s the winning basketball mentality is all it is. And it’s, everybody knows what we’re doing. It’s working on those situations enough that they automatically know, ‘Hey, you know we’re gonna foul, or we’re going to do this.’ I’m not using youth. That’s not it. To play at the level that we want to play at, we’ve got to be dialed into that. That’s me. I’ve got to do a better job with that.”
On forcing to take Tennessee jump shots off the dribble
“That’s what we do. It’s what we do. We don’t want to give you threes. We don’t want to give you, you know, catch-and-shoot threes. We’re gonna try to take ’em away. I thought we executed our game plan pretty well. We were pretty soft on, Okpara wasn’t even involved. Mashack, he’s only had three games in his career where he’s taken over six shots. I was hoping he would take 26, because we weren’t gonna guard him, and then clog all the other stuff up.
“So again they they found enough. They found enough from Gainey. A couple of those were scouting report mistakes, and we’ll get better at those.”
On dealing with first half foul trouble
“That part was easy, because the game was close, we were right there. If the game had gone differently— I bought Kylan in for a minute or two. Trey had a few. Tommy had picked up a couple just protecting the rim. But as long as the game was close, I didn’t have to go much either way. I thought our bench did a nice job of fighting that. But yeah, I thought that was pretty easy, as long as the game’s close.”
On Tennessee’s physicality
“I just told our coaches I thought the Northwestern game was much more physical. The only difference was they didn’t call any fouls for 18 minutes in the first half of the Northwestern game, and now we shoot 60 (free throws) in the first half of this one. And you know, that’s all I told the officials going into halftime, just call the second half like you called the first. But physicality is part of the game. That’s Big 10 play. It’s the common thread that we know we’re gonna get when you face Michigan State, or when you face some of these big teams. And Rick’s won a lot of games because his teams guard. And I don’t care if you go back to Kevin Durant-led teams, or you go back to any of his others, TJ Ford and all those other great ones he had at Texas, his team’s always guard, and there’s always a physicality about them.”
On coaching a game with so many free throws
“Get to the free throw line 3 or, how many free throws did we shoot? I don’t have my glasses. Anyway, go the free throw line. I have zero control over what happens offensively in terms of shooting the ball, in terms of going in. All we did was live in the paint, and we got fouled. And I am so happy about that. That’s the way the game is being called today. I mean, have you guys ever seen a charge called anymore? So why would you just not be a head rammer and just drive the ball, drive the ball, drive the ball, drive the ball, drive the ball, and keep driving the ball until they call fouls? And if you do that, pitch it out and shoot threes. The game’s never gonna be pretty when it’s like that. But if that’s what it takes to beat Tennessee, we’re gonna do that.”
On Illinois struggling to finish at the line
“We have to finish. You can’t get any better shot than a layup, you know? And, you know, you’ve got to be on balance and all that. But I would much rather us get fouled than shoot a layup. I mean, I would much rather, instead of us going up there and throwing stuff, I would just two-foot jump stop and get fouled. Because those are all … there’s a negative reaction that has to happen on that other bench when you get fouled. But we’ve got to make them. Got to make them. And, you know, you shoot under 50% on the easiest shot in the game, so let’s get fouled.”
On Illinois two turnovers on out of bounds plays
