Tennessee basketball knocked off Gardner-Webb 94-52 on Sunday afternoon in Knoxville, coasting to the drama-free win in their penultimate non conference game of the regular season.
Following the game, Gardner-Webb head coach Jeremy Luther discussed his thoughts on Tennessee’s team, the performance of former Vol DJ Jefferson and much more. Here’s everything Luther said.
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On comparing this Tennessee team to last season’s Vols
“I could be wrong, I think they’re bigger. Just so hard to score against. And when you’re playing down against us, it really amplifies the physicality. We played one of our money games on Thursday (against Toccoa Falls) and I think on (Tuesday) you guys played Louisville. And I’m watching Louisville and oh my gosh, you guys have Louisville down 30 something. And I was just think about what was going to happen against us on Sunday today. So (Tennessee is) very physical, very disciplined, very simple in what they do. They know what they do, they do it well. They’re going to pound the ball post and out rebound you. So it wasn’t much of a test for them today, but we enjoyed it.”
On what he has seen from Tennessee and Longwood transfer guard DJ Jefferson
“DJ, he’s an awesome kid. He gets really emotional. Highs are highs, lows are lows. So we’ve tried to really kind of teach him what it would mean just to kind of be even-keeled. When he plays with energy and kind of how we want him to play at our level, he’s pretty good. He’s every bit as as athletic as anybody on the floor whenever he plays. He just got to learn to kind of stay in the moment and kind of do the things that we want him to do. But an awesome kid. He’s been fun to be around. I’m glad it’s working out for him this time with us going forward.”
On what his team can learn from the opening minutes, building a 5-0 lead on Tennessee
“Yeah, I mean it’s kind of been like that for us this year. When we’re playing kind of our level, we’ve let a lot of things kind of snowball. We’re the kings at kind of stringing four or five, six bad plays on both ends of the floor at a time. So we’ve got to be better with that. And just kind of realizing the moment. But in an environment like that, I told the kids before the game, hey, we’re going to try to shoot 30 threes tonight, 30-plus threes, and if they go in, you may have a chance to kind of keep things close for a while. And if they don’t, what do we have to lose? So that’s kind of our mindset going in. Let’s shoot them. If you’re open, get your feet set. You know, our Jacob Hogarth, our five-man, hit a three early. So yeah, we were just going to try to play as loose as we can. If you make some early, you never know what could happen. But obviously that plan didn’t work out too well.”
On his comment last season that TBAaFCC has more fridges then anywhere else in the country
“All my kids, I mean, I got up this morning, your guys media does a good job or whoever does your Twitter, TikTok, Snaptweet, whatever. And people started sending me all the stuff and my boys getting real slow. It’s been awesome. So the Big South does a— every head coach, they always do a follow up to the game. Every head coach has their nickname or whatnot and so on their tweets when they say if you won or lost, my nickname from this game is now the Boiling Springs Bandit. Since my kids, I never stole them. I never stole the drinks. My kids stole the drinks. And it’s okay if my kids, they’re young kids— my fifth grader, they can steal the drinks. My kids did, but that’s everybody. They couldn’t make it. They had a church service today so they stayed back, but they were, ‘hey dad, did you get more drinks?’ I said ‘nah, not this time.’ So it’s been fun. I think 90,000 people saw that. I’m not a very famous guy, but that was awesome. Got a little bit of fame from that.”
On if anything stands out from his return trip to Knoxville
“How awesome this place is? Man, this is, it’s fun to play in these, I mean this is our sixth one of the year. We’ve played six money games and I like them. There’s no pressure on us. Just having the experience and the kids can see what this level’s like. And Coach Barnes, you know, he’s from our area. I don’t know if you guys know that. He’s played in our arena. He played at Lenoir Rhyne and they would have some games down in Boiling Springs at Lenoir Rhyne. They’re not very far apart. So he knows a lot of the same people and he’s such a class guy and (I’m) always a huge fan of his. I think you guys got a chance to be really good. I know you guys took that three game skid, but I’d be hard pressed to think that there’s gonna be a lot of teams that are gonna be better than you guys from here on out.”
On what he saw from Tennessee point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie
“Yeah, you know, he stayed within himself. I’ve watched you guys a bunch this year, just over Thanksgiving break. When he’s shooting the ball well from distance, he’s even harder to guard. And I think that just kind of opens up the offense, ’cause now teams have really gotta kind of long close him and he’s really athletic. One of my assistants got mad at Spence Sims for us. Spence was a walk-on at Alabama last year. That’s the kind of kids we get — great kid — and he closed out to him (Gillespie) in the corner late in the game and he just kind of ripped the ball, went baseline and one of my assistants got mad. I’m like, that kid is probably making $3 million and my guy’s got, you know, Taco Bell coupons across the street from our campus. I go, ‘why (are) we getting mad at the kid?’ He’s really athletic getting to the rim, too. So yeah, he’s a tough cover. I know you guys had Zakai Zeigler last year. I think with the way this kid (Gillespie) shoots it and kind of a little bit bigger, can get to the rim, he really makes you guys tough, kind of makes you guys go.”
On how mid-major basketball fits into the NIL landscape
“It’s really hard. We don’t have anything. We don’t have any money. A lot of people don’t understand the revenue share. They don’t get what that means. We’re such a tuition driven institution, and when you opt in, you can no longer have the numbers that you want. Like I have to have 29 guys on my roster, 13 are on a scholarship, and I got 14 walk-ons, you know, within our program. And that helps the school, and I’m glad to do it. It brings in $500,000 or $600,000. So we can’t opt in and obviously, you know, there’s not a lot of people just throwing money into a collective for us. This is my 13th year here. We’ve been able to win seven of these (buy) games in my 13 years. We beat a really good Purdue team that went to the Sweet Sixteen. We beat Clemson, Georgia Tech, Georgia, Nebraska, Wake Forest, but now that that gap has widened. You know, some of those kids that Tennessee is now getting, we could potentially get those kids. Now without — I mean, you pick up the phone and if you don’t have x-amount (of dollars), you can’t even get ’em on the phone anymore. So it’s only gonna continue to get wider. And my administration’s fine with that. I want to help the school as much as I can. I brought in a lot of money to help the school with these money games. There’s really not a plan going forward for us to get it and we’re fine, we’ll do whatever the institution wants us to do. But it’s gonna be tough if you look at it and follow the games, there’s just very few of us low-major, mid-majors, even competing in games like this anymore. But it’s fine.”
