“Did you get an explanation on your technical?” a media member asked Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes following the Vols’ 75-62 win at Vanderbilt on Saturday night.
“No,” Barnes said while shaking his head. “Give them kudos.”
Tennessee’s ninth-year head coach stopped, searching for the correct words to avoid a fine from the SEC offices. Struggling to find them, Barnes shrugged and made a face of bewilderment.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever had one when I was talking to another referee and another guy did. But he thought I deserved it and give him credit for it,” Barnes said.
The veteran head coach was so befuddled by the call that he spoke about the official as if it was an opposing player who hit a difficult shot to beat them at the buzzer.
The technical came with 1:17 left in the first half. Zakai Zeigler fouled Vanderbilt’s Ezra Manyon on a drive to the basket while Josiah-Jordan James blocked the shot. The officials ruled it goaltending and while they reviewed the goaltending, Barnes had a passionate conversation with an official on the shooting foul and whatever else wasn’t pleasing him.
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Across the court, a different official assessed Barnes a technical foul. It was Barnes’ second technical foul of the season after he picked one up in the first half of Tennessee’s Maui Invitational loss against Purdue.
After the review, the goal tending call was overturned. Still, Manyon hit all four free throws to give Vanderbilt a 35-26 lead late in the first half. It proved to be a turning point in the game.
Tennessee scored the final four points of the first half to cut the deficit to five points at the intermission. Then the Vols came out dialed to open the second half and used the end of the first half to spark an extended 32-13 run.
“I think that last four-minute stretch (in the first half), with the technical Coach (Barnes) got, we were all kind of ready just to go out and hoop,” Dalton Knecht said postgame. “They started talking a little bit and all of us were ready just to go out and play.”
Tennessee turned a nine-point deficit into a 10-point lead in the ensuing 10 minutes after the technical foul and it proved to be one of the biggest turning points in the game.
