Tennessee basketball got back in the win column on Tuesday night by dominating Louisville 83-62 in Knoxville. The Vols led nearly the whole way but opened things up early in the second half and cruised to the victory.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes discussed the Vols’ improved defense, Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s performance and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
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On if that’s the kind of defensive performance he’s looking for from this Tennessee team
“It was. Obviously really, really proud of our guys. We had a tough stretch there. That last 10 days of practice, they’ve worked hard. Learned a lot the last 10 days. You learn a lot from those three losses in terms of how you can do a lot to help your opponent if you’re not the sharp as you need to be on both ends. But I really felt we were locked in maybe as well defensively as we’ve been all year against a (good) team. Have a lot of respect for Pat Kelsey and what he’s done to Louisville, a program that, as you guys know, is rich in history and tradition. And he did a great job a year ago and he’s doing the same thing with this group. I know they were down a key player (point guard Mikel Brown Jr.), but we dealt with that (injuries) with a player or two at times. But just really proud of the focus of our guys coming in. I thought their mental preparation, but probably more important, it was leading up to the last couple days getting ready for Louisville, what we did through that period, talking about what we have to do to give ourselves the best chance to win.”
On Tennessee forcing more turnovers tonight than other games this season, if that comes from that mental preparation
“Well, again, I think you’ve got to give it to the players. I think we’ve proven — we haven’t consistently proven (it). I mean, we had a game like that against Houston obviously, where we were on point. We had some other games, but it’s still a group of younger guys. We’ve got so many young guys that are learning what this is about, there’s no doubt. And I didn’t think at any point in time getting ready for this season we would have two freshmen starting lineup, the ones we have coming off the bench. But I’ve told you guys all along we’re really excited about our younger players, the freshman class.
“But I thought Ethan (Burg) made some big-time plays tonight. I thought Mo (Amaree Abram) did. I thought a key part of the game was the last four minutes of the first half when we were in foul trouble, had a group of guys out there that hadn’t been in that situation ever and they were able to not surrender the lead and give us a little bit of margin there. But overall, really proud of everyone and I’m happy because I know how hard they’ve worked the last 10 days and won a game against an outstanding team, an extremely well-coached team. A hard team to guard. Very hard team to guard because they really had a great scheme. They really do a lot of tough stuff that is really difficult to guard.”
On how to get that version of Felix Okpara back more consistently
“We tell him we think he’s the best overall defensive player in the country when he really is locked in like that. Because he can go out on the perimeter, obviously we know what he can do around the rim. Yeah, when he’s locked in, he gives us something that everybody would like to have. And he’s at his best when he’s playing that way. He really impacts the game in so many different ways because I know people have to look for him. And it’s a difficult game for our guys. We play with a rim runner, they don’t. So our guys are used to running down the floor, running underneath the basket to get ready to guard somebody. They have to stop out there. And DeWayne Brown still learning how to do it. He’s still getting better. Jalen’s learning how to do it. JP’s learning how to do it. But ‘Fe’ did a really good job, for the most part, doing that for us and he was getting our ball-screen coverage right.”
On how Tennessee can get that more consistently from Felix Okpara
“Well, I love him to death. And again, I just know when once he settles in to do that, I think if I were him, I’d know that that’s my ticket to get where he wants to go. Because he can impact games and everybody can use a guy like that. I don’t care what team you are, you get a guy to come out to and play with that kind of energy and impact the ball at the ball screen and rebound like he does. And he can score the ball, he can do it. And block shots. And we need him to almost have the attitude that, hey, he’s a senior, he’s been here two years now, this is my team and I need to do this every night.”
On wanting to avoid losing four in a row, pressure the players felt
“I don’t want to lose any, to be honest with you. But when you do lose— and the way we lost is what is so hard. The way we lost them. Again, I’ll never take away from the other team because the final score, whoever’s got the most points won the game. But from every team that goes back to look, I don’t know who it is, you look back and we certainly have and we felt like we should not have lost those three games. And again, that’s to take nothing away from Kansas, Syracuse, Illinois because they’re all good teams capable of beating anybody on any night. But the way we played that game, we just didn’t give ourselves much of a chance because we are not at that point in time, where we can be as bad as we were on offense and defense and expect to beat those teams.
But again, I think it says a lot about these guys because the last 10 days have been tough for a reason because we knew we needed to get to a certain level. Playing, again, getting ready. Knowing you’re staring down the barrel at Louisville coming in and having a great year and great program. Really know that they got guys that can— the other night they made 18 threes and then you know what they’re capable of. And so the credit goes to our players. Coach Gainey did a good job with the scout but along with our other GAs helping him. But you got to give the credit to the players. They knew what we needed to get done and they didn’t want to lose four in a row and just good win for us.”
On what clicked for Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Nate Ament in the second half
“Well, I thought both of them, they obviously were going after Ja’Kobi and I think some of his mistakes were fatigue because they were trying to press him all night long. I thought Nate was really relaxed and I think he’s just going to keep getting better and better. He keeps going a little bit too deep. He’s going from a one-on-one situation where he is almost putting himself into a one-on-two situation by trying to get it deeper. He’s just going to have to get to his spots and raise up and shoot it. I thought he looked relaxed. I thought he let the game come to him and I hate that he got in foul trouble. Again, those other guys stepped up and helped us and they’re going to have to do it because when we play defense, the way we wanna play, we’ll learn, I hope, to do it without fouling, but people are gonna continue to drive he (Ament), Ja’Kobi to try and put him in foul trouble. They’re going to have to learn to deal with that on the offensive end. I know Ja’Kobi picked up an offensive foul. I think Nate picked up one too, but I thought he got fouled before that. But they’ve gotta try to eliminate those.”
On practice translating to the game
“It did, more mentally than anything. I thought we had, for the most part, offensively, I mean, we weren’t perfect obviously, but we’ve been really bad offensively. I mean just no organization, just when what our initial set, what we didn’t get. Guys were just putting their head down. Nobody knew what was going on. Didn’t get the board coverage, all kinds of things. But, again, I can tell you we got closer to tonight playing like we practice and it was more, maybe as much from a mental standpoint. Execution. Because we did call a couple things we executed pretty well. Not perfectly, a couple of them. But for the most part early we did.”
On Tennessee’s bench out-scoring Louisville’s 34-3
“Well we think that every guy we put out there we think can help us. What we’re looking for is consistency, and we told them (that) the guys that are locked in defensively night-to-night will be the guys who’ll probably play the most. But we can shoot the ball when we take good shots. We put ourselves in three games where we just took shots we’re not going to make. I mean they’re just low percentage shots. When we play inside out, like anybody, those standstill threes— you got to make a high percentage of them. Make your free throws, you got a chance if you can get those good looks from the inside out. The stationary threes. We’ve made a couple of those tonight, which every guy on our team’s capable of doing that.”
On the performance from Tennessee sophomore guard Ethan Burg:
“I thought he played the way we need him to play. He wasn’t too anxious. That’s what’s hurt him. I mean, he did it one time tonight, where he’s got a habit he’s got to break. As soon as he gets the ball, he starts dribbling with nowhere to go most of the time. He made a great post feed, made a great post feed, where he got it — where in the past he would’ve just put his head down and start dribbling. Made a really nice layup off of a little formation they ran there at the end of the first half. But defensively, I thought he worked.
“Still, most of our breakdowns in transition are the young guys. They don’t realize in transition you don’t have a man per say, you gotta match up with whoever. Especially a team like this, they get any daylight at all, they can knock them down.
“But he’s getting better. I appreciate him. It’s been a tough 10 days for him. I’ve been hard on him. Had a long talk with him the other night on the phone for about 40 minutes. Told him exactly what I felt, how I felt and what I thought he needed to do. He came out and he responded.”
On Tennessee freshman wing Amari Evans scoring seven points, but fouling out in seven minutes
“Well, that’s what we see every day in practice. He can score at all three levels, he fouls every day in practice. We see it every day and that’s what he’s gonna have to learn not to do. I mean, he plays hard, he’s aggressive, he’s going to impact the game, but the more he’s out there, he’s going to have learn to play without fouling. ‘Cause he’s earned his minutes that he’s getting and would’ve played more tonight probably, but foul trouble sent him to the bench. That probably above more than anything will teach him if you want to play, you gotta play without fouling.”
On Tennessee junior forward Jaylen Carey recording a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds
“I think Jaylen could be terrific. I mean, you think about it, if he makes his free throws, he’s got what, a 20-point night (if) he makes just seven, you know what I mean? And a double-double, he could be that every night, but you know what, he won’t get there every night until he gets consistent in practice every day, to understand that every day you gotta get better and continue. I give him a lot of credit. It’s all new to him in a lot of ways and believe me, he’s just scratching the surface of what he could be, if he’s willing to make himself hurt. It hurts to be great. It does. I mean, you gotta put yourself outta your comfort zone and can he do it? There’s no doubt. He can run faster than he runs. He can jump higher than he jumps. He (can) shoot the ball. He’s just gonna have to make his free throws ’cause he can shoot it. It’s just a mindset, that he’s gonna have to decide when he gets tired, he can play through it. I’m excited for him because he knows I’m not backing off and he knows that we’ve raised the bar. He’s raised the bar. We expect more from him.”
On Tennessee senior guard Amaree Abram’s wrist being taped
“Well, his wrist bothers him. He’s got a wrist problem there that you saw sometimes, he’s doing a lot with one hand, but I thought his minutes were good tonight, played hard.”
On if Tennessee redshirt sophomore J.P. Estrella is on a minutes restriction after dealing with injuries earlier this season
“No. I think that J.P. is just still working his way back into it. I don’t think there’s a player out there that cannot practice and play effective minutes for a long time, and he’s starting to get back to where he is practicing because when he gets tired, his drop off is significant, too. And we probably kept him out there a little bit longer, but we know we gotta get him playing longer periods of time.
“But defensively, he’s gotta learn that he gives up too many angles in the post and there’s no reason that he does that. But he’ll get better the more he practices.”
On what it says about Tennessee’s growth that it led at halftime despite Nate Ament and Ja’Kobi Gillespie dealing with foul trouble in the first half
“Yeah, I thought that could have been the most important part of the game. I mean, we could have cracked right there and given them momentum going into the locker room. But we found a way to get some stops there at the end. Ethan came up with a big layup, but I think we had two stops their last two possessions, a big part of the game. I hope it serves to be a great lesson for our guys to know that we don’t have to rely on any two guys. We can rely on a bunch of guys if they’ll play the role that they need to play for us. It’s all about getting better. I mean, we’re still in December, getting close to obviously going into conference, but we still got a long ways to go.”
