Jonas Aidoo admitted that Tennessee’s coaches were on him “pretty hard” late this week at practice after Mississippi State’s Tolu Smith pushed Aidoo around in the Bulldogs’ 77-72 win in Starkville on Wednesday night.
Ninth-year head coach Rick Barnes and his coaching staff got the response they were looking for from the junior Saturday in Tennessee’s 85-79 win at Georgia.
“I keep telling Jonas that I think he’s going develop into one of the best post guys in the country,” Barnes said, reiterating a point he’s made to the media frequently, postgame. “Defensively, I mean, his length and what he does around the rim. I mean, he’s got a good quick jump, second jump when he wants to.”
Aidoo stuffed the stat sheet on Saturday in Athens, totaling 10 points, a season-best 15 rebounds and five blocks. The performance marked Aidoo’s fourth double-double of the season and his second in three SEC games.
“Very important,” Aidoo said of bouncing back from his struggles in Starkville. “Coach Barnes preaches consistency with me, so I just had to start playing hard, playing with a more competitive edge than I’ve been playing in the past game. So that’s really stuck to me.”
The numbers are great. They showed that Aidoo came ready to play and bounced back from his poor performance three days prior. What was more important were the plays he made defensively in the game’s final five minutes.
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After torching Tennessee’s defense for the first 15 minutes of the second half, Georgia scored just one point and didn’t make a basket in the game’s final minutes.
The Bulldogs’ had eight possessions and 10 scoring opportunities down the stretch thanks to a jump ball and an offensive rebound.
Tennessee switched up its ball screen defense and went to a “black coverage” which put pressure on Aidoo defensively. In those first two possessions he switched onto a guard and blocked a jump shot before blowing up a handoff attempt at mid court which forced a turnover.
In the ensuing eight defensive possessions, he played great perimeter defense again after getting switched onto a guard, forced two missed shots at the rim and grabbed a pair of defensive rebounds.
Aidoo wasn’t the only reason Tennessee’s defense reached another gear in closing time but he was a big part of it.
“We’re going to have to guard without fouling,” Barnes said of the improved defense down the stretch. “We didn’t do that in the first half, but coming down the end, I thought we did a much better job of finding the shooters, getting there and trying to work to stay in front of the ball out front, out top. And then trying to obviously finish it with rebounding the ball.”
Aidoo’s biggest weakness this season has been defending more physical big men. Georgia’s 7-foot, 275-pound center Russel Tchewba is physical if anything, and while he’s much less skilled than the big men that have given Aidoo issues, the junior still took a step in the right direction against the Bulldogs.
Tennessee’s starting five-man didn’t answer all the questions about his game against Georgia, but he showed the ability to bounce back from a poor performance. That’s a sign of maturity. Tennessee probably doesn’t escape Athens with a critical SEC win without it.
