Everything Rick Barnes said about Vols’ win over Appalachian State

By Ben McKee
- Dec 16, 2020

Vols head coach Rick Barnes met with the media following No. 10 Tennessee’s 79-38 win over Appalachian State to discuss his team’s dominating performance.

Barnes discussed if he’s been surprised by Tennessee’s defense to start the season, the improvement of Josiah-Jordan James, on the ability of his guards to get a bucket, and Uros Plavsic and Davonte Gaines receiving an uptick in playing time.

Here’s everything Barnes had to say following the Vols’ third win of the season:

On if he’s been surprised by how well the defense has performed through the first three games:

“I don’t know if I would say I’m surprised because, you know, the one thing we’ve talked about as a team is, one, I think these guys have great respect for each other. I think they have great respect for each other’s work ethic. I think they know that we keep talking about the leadership, where they expect it. There are a lot of guys that are capable of doing things. We keep talking about are those guys who are willing to do it all the time? Who is really going to go play hard. And if you don’t, you should understand we’re going to give someone else a chance. But I do think these guys are working hard and know that we can get better. We have to get better. But defensively, obviously it’s something that we’ve always tried to emphasize. But we’ve got two freshmen that I’ve said I thought the best thing they bring us is their on-ball defense, which it takes freshmen some time to learn how to do that. I think Jaden and Keon are good, they really get up there and hawk the ball. Santi (Vescovi) does it in a different way. Everybody kind of does it in a different way. But as a group we know, they know, that if they don’t give us the effort we need there that that’s probably the quickest way they’ll get subbed out, maybe before they want to come out.”

On Jaden Springer and Keon Johnson diving for loose balls in a lopsided game:

“I think it says a lot for the respect the have for each other. I think it says a lot for the respect they have for the game too. Because we talk about the respect for the game that you have to have. We talk about how we want to make every possession count, every possession is important. It goes back to tomorrow we’ll look at this film and scrub it out, the way we would any game. That’s what we do. So they know they’re going to be graded. Our grading system, they know tomorrow they’re going to come in. Every point that Appalachian scored is going to be assigned to somebody. We have the charts that we keep. They want to be in that green area, where they’ve done their job. But there is a chemistry with them, where they want to see each other do well. And I think the more that they hold themselves accountable, the better team we’ll be. App just came off a big win and there’s no doubt early our defense set the tone for us. Our depth, we get to practice that, the way we play our defense, we do that everyday in practice. That’s what we do. We expect both teams to be able to do it.

“That’s why I was really pleased with those guys that ended the game tonight. I told them, I said hey these minutes matter. Don’t go out thinking we’re just, I’m open, I’m going to shoot the ball, quick shot. I want to see you play the game. We want to see you play the game. And I really appreciate the way those guys took it serious enough to go out and try to respect the game the right way.”

On Josiah-Jordan James shooting 3-for-3 from the 3-point line:

“He’s worked very hard. Josiah is a really hard worker. He’s worked hard in a lot of different areas. Tonight we weren’t sure we would be able to do it, but we closed the game with him at the four. That’s something we’ve talked about with that lineup, with him being there because we love his versatility. We think he can play a lot of different places. He’s arguably our best rebounder right now, if you think about it, the way he goes after it. He almost had a double-double tonight. He probably could have if he got a few more minutes. But Josiah has worked really hard on his shot, he really has. I’ll go back, prior to us having to shut down the last time with the COVID, the numbers that we stat, everything we do in practice, both he, VJ (Bailey), Yves (Pons) and Santi (Vescovi), their percentages were all over 40 percent. Even though we hadn’t shot it well in the games, we have confidence we’re going to do that because we watch them do it over months at a time. I thought tonight he was comfortable.

“I thought Yves, I thought after he went back in that last time, I went down to the end of the bench and said hey man, you’re trying too hard. You’ve got too good of hands to fumble the ball out of bounds. You just have to slow down and just relax. I thought the three that he took and made, that’s the three that he practices everyday. That type of rhythm. When he does that, believe me, he’s a high percentage shooter from out there.”

On having guards that can go get a basket when they need one:

“There’s no doubt that we’ve got really those three guys, Santi, guys that can go in there and go get a shot. We post them. You saw tonight we tried to work on posting guards every chance we get. We talked a lot about turning those drives into post-ups. And the thing that makes all of them good in that area is they’re willing passers. We knew that App State would come in and be heavy gap oriented. I don’t think we had a charge tonight. We were concerned about that because they do a good job of taking charges. Yet, to your point, we through those gaps. Not get to them but get through it and make some plays there. But we probably have more guys than we’ve ever had that can make — there’s no question, we have — that can make those kinds of plays.”

On Uros Plavsic and Davonte Gaines seeing an uptick in playing time:

“I appreciate those guys. They work. Great teammates. They come in every day. They are going to play hard and they got minutes. They did. But early in the year, we are still trying to figure out some things to get a rotation down that we feel like we have to get it. Playing these games like this — we did have a hard practice yesterday. We did. We went pretty hard yesterday.

“From here on out, we probably wont’ get as much as time in the gym as we would like because of these games coming quickly. We do want to be as strong and fresh as we can be. We want to get better. Those guys that you mentioned, they work hard every day. I think their teammates — I think you can tell by the response of their teammates how much and how well they are respected. They want to see them go in and do well. I thought those guys that haven’t played and tonight being the first time handled themselves well. Just again trying to do the things we practice. That is what we talk about. Do the things we practice and respect the game and we will be okay.”

On the play of freshman guard Jaden Springer:

“Jaden has got a feel. I think he likes the way we like to play. We like to get that ball close to rim. He has got a great knack and a great feel there. He is one of those guys that when he gets it in that midrange deep area, you are really sort of surprised when he misses it. He is very strong. He is an excellent finisher at the rim. Another player that has worked really hard on his shot. I have said it before. He and Keon have been hurt with the shutdowns that we have had more than anybody. Those guys, if we had a typical (offseason), they would be further along. But they are having to do right in front of your eyes. They practice, but they are out there learning.

“What I like about both of them — I think this is the second game in a row, where they have taken themselves out. We tell them they are going to have to play their way in shape because we think they can be in better condition. Both of them took themselves out tonight and the other night, which is good. That is what they need to do. They need to learn to sustain it for longer periods of time. I think that is a very unselfish trait on their part where they say I am going to go play as hard as I can and tag out and let somebody else have some minuets and i will be ready to go. I actually told Keon one time tonight, I said let me know when you are ready. He sat there for two or three minutes of clock time, then he said I am ready. You want that kind of attitude and you want that fight from those guys that they are going to push themselves and then they know when it is time to check out and get ready to go again.”

On having offensive success in the post:

“I think Appalachian State made an effort that we are not going to put them on the line 30 times. I think they did not want to do that. There are a lot of different reasons. They felt like the players they had out there, they needed to have out there as much as they possibly could. I think it is smart on their part. We are not going to let you shoot 30 (free throws). They were heavy-gap some and why would they not want us to settle for some threes early, which I thought we did early.

“We are a team that we look to go inside, whether it is off the pass or off the bounce to get it there. It is not necessary all the time to shoot it. We just like to play inside-out. We think those step-in threes, those swing, swing plays are high-percentage plays. Those are shots that we take in practice when we are doing individual work. We move the ball well and I think guys are ready to shoot it. I think as time goes on I’ll be surprised if we don’t start knocking down more of those shots on the perimeter as long as we don’t get too antsy and feel like we got to. A couple games, I feel like we were stiff- and short-arming it because we were not shooting the ball. We just have to get to a place where we shoot the ball like we are capable of.”

On the thought process behind putting Josiah-Jordan James at the four:

“You saw him tonight for the first time. He has never done it. What you saw tonight was the first time he has done in any kind of competition because we were dealing all that we have dealt with up to this point. The stop and starts, we are learning a lot about ourselves. You can practice and you know what we did in practice. He is one of those guys. He works at it. He is going to work hard every day. Tonight was the first time he has actually played it in a game with any flow. I thought he did a good job with it. We did something tonight that we have never practiced where he was at the four and he brought it down and played the one. Keon just slid right into the four and we still executed. That tells me that the versatility with have — we have never done that. I think it is a compliment to all of their basketball IQ there because they just flowed right to it with different guys at different spots. We would love to be able to do that more often. Once we came out of lock down a week and a half ago, we were just trying to get it back to where we could get our base package going and we have some other things that we would like to. We just haven’t been able to get to it. One of them is him at the four. What you saw tonight was the first time he has done that.”