Vols assistant coach Kim English met with the media on Friday afternoon to preview Saturday night’s game against Alabama in Tennessee’s second conference game.
English discussed the Vols’ win over No. 12 Missouri, what makes Alabama so tough to defend from the perimeter, if anything about Tennessee has surprised him since the start of the season, the team’s chemistry and one-on-one games between he and Victor Bailey Jr..
Here’s everything English had to say:
“We have a good opponent tomorrow in Alabama, coached by Nate Oats. They’re a really good team with some good wins this season. Obviously, Ole Miss a few days ago. They beat a really good Furman team, Providence, had a hard-fought battle against Western Kentucky. They are a completely different opponent than what we just faced in Missouri. They play the fourth-fastest pace in the country. They shoot about 37 threes a game. They stretch the floor, five out. It is the college version of what the Houston Rockets are. It’s going to be a great challenge for our guys. Seeing how they respond from executing a game plan at Missouri, to a completely different attack against Alabama tomorrow at 6 p.m.”
On why Tennessee has been able to start games so fast this season:
“I think it comes from practice. Coach Barnes is very demanding of our guys. He harps on our guys paying attention and taking care of the details as he likes to say. When we go over offense, we go at it at a speed that is conducive to the game. I tell our guys — our offense gets to go against one of the best defenses in the nation every single day in practice. Our defense gets to go against our offense every day. That iron sharpens iron mentality helps our guys out a lot when the game starts.”
On if Alabama will be the toughest test for Tennessee’s perimeter defense to this point in the season:
“I think we’ve had a few tough opponents. They’re tough in different ways. Missouri was tough from the standpoint of speed. Cincinnati and the talent of Kieth Williams. USC Upstate and the kid Bruner. McKinley Wright from Colorado. We’ve faced a different type of tough perimeter opponents all season, but this toughness is going to come in the form of your facing guards and forwards because it’s five out. Alex Reese, Jordan Bruner, transfer from Yale, Rojas, a JUCO transfer. These are 6′ 10 guys that are very good 3-point shooters. In the past it’s been Saint Joe’s guys that were really good shooters. The Missouri guards are really good at driving. Alabama guard Jahvon Quinerly can shoot with the best of them and drive with the best of them. Petty can shoot with the best of them and can jump like Yves Pons. Putting that together makes it a very tough challenge for our guys, but it’ll be a great opportunity for us to see what we got.”
On the development of Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James:
“Santi’s ball security has improved quite a bit from then and Josiah’s all-around game. Josiah has benefited a lot since he’s been here. Two of the things that have been a big reason for the maturity in Josiah’s game is one, the number of minutes he played last year. 30 minutes a game as a freshman. He got real life game time experience on the job. Also, with Josiah, his ability to play the one, two, three, four for us. He’s played all over the court, he knows every position, all the nuances of every spot. Our guys just respect him. I like to say Josiah has found his game at Tennessee. He’s found who he is and that’s a smart, talented, jump shooting, rebounding, playmaking, point wing. What Santi has been through is really fascinating. For him to come in the middle of the season. We were talking about it, when we played Appalachian State, that was the first time Santi Vescovi had not played against a high major basketball program. He had only played SEC opponents, Colorado, Kansas and Cincinnati. He’s learned on the job in a major way. He has settled back into what he does best. Which is to run our team and shoot open shots.”
On the team’s chemistry:
“Those guys aren’t worried about starting. We think we have eight starters. All of those guys have tremendous value. All of those guys — I was looking back. Davonte Gaines who is outside of that core group of five, finished the game last season at Alabama. All of those guys bring something different, whether it’s shooting, defense, driving, passing or playmaking. They’ve all had their moments and I think what potentially makes us a difficult team to defend is you don’t know who the go-to man is at Tennessee. The go-to man is the open player. It is the open player that time down the floor. That’s our go-to guy. Pass the open man the ball. We don’t have a selfish player on our team. These plays aren’t for ‘you,’ they’re for us. They accept that mentality and role. The young guys challenge the old guys in practice every day and the old guys are picking up the young guys. I remember a game, Davonte Gaines had, had back-to-back DNP’s (Did Not Participate) and we were in practice and Jaden (Springer) or Keon (Johnson) was struggling guarding the play. I stood on the side and watched Ticket grab Jaden and coach him through how to navigate the screen or get around the screen. I took a moment to pause on the side — that’s something different, that’s different. You don’t see that a lot on teams and that type of brotherhood and camaraderie usually leads to good.”
On his one-on-one games against junior guard Victor Bailey Jr. last season:
“I don’t know if you asked this, but I dominated the series. It’s something that I’ve done since I’ve gotten into coaching. If we ever have a player that we’re redshirting, I use it as their gameday. There was a game, so instead of it just being another conditioning workout or shooting drill I made it a game. I did it at Tulsa. I did it at Colorado and I do it here at Tennessee. It became competitive and it was great for him. Hopefully he got to take some of his only L’s on the Thompson-Boling Arena court. It’s helped him see the game from a different lens—defensively especially. I hope it helped him.”
On the record between he and Bailey:
“It’s officially 6-4. That’s a good follow-up question. I was going to leave it at dominated, but it was a 6-4 series win and I may not have played the last few home games just to keep the two-game lead.”
On the impact Alabama newcomers Jahvon Quinerly and Jordan Bruner have had this season:
“Bruner’s ability to stretch the floor and play hard. Usually when you have stretch bigs they’re kind of pre-madonna’s or they’re soft usually. Not at all with Bruner. He’s a really good shooter, he has great size and he’s incredibly tough. I think he has nine blocked shots. He takes charges and he’s on the floor as much as you would expect from a 5′ 11″ scrappy guy. He’s got a tremendous I.Q. which you would expect from a transfer from Yale. Quinerly’s skill level is tremendous. A former McDonald’s All-American, a five-star prospect—he’s really seemed to find his game at Alabama. I remember watching him struggle as a freshman for stretches in the Big East. His game has opened up. His drive game, his shot, his off the bounce, his playmaking. He may be the most talented guard we’ve faced up to this point along with McKinley Wright.”
On the photo of four Tennessee players helping Yves Pons up off of the floor at Missouri on Wednesday night:
“I posted it on Instagram. It’s the best photo I’ve seen since I’ve been in sport. High school, college, professionally and coaching, I’ve never seen a better photo. When players fall down in games, you have to think about how tired the players are, all of the other places they could be on the court and the communication that’s going on during a dead ball. I haven’t seen it on film yet, but for those four guys to instinctively and automatically do that? We always say it. ‘Help your teammates up.’ But, it’s nothing we were coaching in the moment in that game. Those four guys thought it and sprinted to Yves and got him up. Out program creed: ‘INAM.’ It’s Not About Me. It’s not just on a wall. Our guys really live by it and in that moment, you’re seeing it. In that moment all four of those guys are focused on Yves Pons. When you have that as the structure in your program — everyone says the cliché: ‘It’s amazing what you can accomplish when no one cares who gets the credit.’ I really believe that, that is becoming who this team is.”
On Alabama forward Herb Jones:
“He does it all. He’s a hard-playing point forward. He for them is what Yves Pons is for us defensively. He creates matchup problems all over the court. For the first time in his career he’s really shooting the ball well from beyond the arc. He’s being selective but he’s shooting 46 percent from three right now. For him to play 10 minutes the last game against Ole Miss and for them to still play well and dominate, just goes to show you what his leadership does. For those guys to still execute the game plan and beat a good Ole Miss team pretty handily is impressive. Even though he wasn’t on the court I think his imprint is still on this team. Being a senior, missing games last year with his hand, I remember watching games last year of him out there with the cast on his shooting hand. His playing games with his off hand with the cast just shows you how much he means to that team and how much he wants to compete and play.”
On the message from the coaching staff to the team after a dominating win over Missouri:
“‘If you can have triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters the same’ is a quote by Rudyard Kipling and it rings true. Things are never as good as they seem. We watched the film and scrubbed it out like we do every game. We fouled a little bit too much, we didn’t take care of the ball, I thought we could have shot better and I thought we could have gotten to the free throw line more. We could’ve been better. One game in conference play, you don’t know who’s the best, let alone the second best. We have the utmost respect for every SEC opponent and we go into every single game with that approach. Not letting our guys get too high after wins and not letting them get too low after DNPs or bad games or losses is the crux of having a good season. Our focus is next opponent. Our focus is next possession. We’re trying to break it down anymore.”
On returning to Missouri where he played college basketball:
“We actually played them there last year, but it was good. Again, you can’t preach all of these things about being in the moment and focusing on the possessions if you’re going to be emotional as a coach, so it was just another game. Obviously, I went to Missouri and played, but that was many moons ago and I’m a basketball coach at Tennessee and really proud to be here. I want the Vols to win every time out, no doubt about it.”
On what about this Tennessee team has surprised him since the beginning of the season:
“Hopefully it’ll keep surprising me, but how hard we play. How hard our guys play. I was at Colorado watching the Sweet Sixteen game against Purdue and I remember thinking, ‘man, that is a high-level game,’ with passing, cutting, speed, the shot-making. I was blown away by the speed of that game, and I was thinking it was Grant Williams, Admiral Schofield and Jordan Bone versus Carsen Edwards, Isaac Haas and all these high-level players. It was just a high-level game in March. But when I get to Knoxville and I go to my first practice, that’s just the way it is. That’s the pace, the heartbeat and the tempo of our practices. Very fast, very hard, very competitive. And the games are the same. We said to the guys a few weeks ago after a few not so great practices from the young guys — who could all their lives just go through practice and then show up in the games — we were telling them that you don’t have to rise the occasion, you fall to the level of your preparation. Here, we really practice hard. Falling to the level of our preparation is not a long fall, So I am surprised at how hard we continue to compete in games every single night and continue to compete in practice every single day and I’m hoping that I continue to be surprised by that.”
