Tennessee basketball knocked off Texas 85-71 on Wednesday night for its first SEC win of the 2025-26 season. The Vols led by as many as 23 points in the second half and withstood a number of second half runs to earn the double-digit victory.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes discussed Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s big game, the play of freshmen and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
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On what he liked most about Tennessee point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s 34-point performance
“I thought he was really locked in starting yesterday, after Saturday’s game and in our film session, the boatload of mistakes we made at Arkansas, he came out yesterday and you could tell he was really locked into doing his part individually, more defensively than anything. And I thought today his defense is what got him really going. I thought he was really working hard on the defensive end and we know he can get it going like he did. Obviously he was very effective in the middle ball-screen, but it started in practice the day before.”
On what Tennessee got from freshman forward DeWayne Brown against Texas
“The more he plays, the better he’s going to get. He’s worked at it, had a tough cover tonight, but I thought for the most part did a really good job. And he’s starting to get more and more comfortable. And again, I think at one time today one of the coaches, Coach (Bryan) Lentz tapped me and said you realize we’ve got three freshmen on the court? In your second conference game, I think that really is a tribute to those guys because they’ve earned their right to be out there.”
On Tennessee’s front court as a whole against Texas, after not being happy with their play at Arkansas
“Well, on the whole, you look at tonight, what did we get in the paint? We did a good job, 44 points in the lane to their 18. And Sean’s team’s guard. They do. And I thought they did a really good job of our early with physicality, not letting us get the deep post up that we like to have. But I thought defensively overall for the most part, I think for the most part our post guys did what we asked them to do compared to what we didn’t do Saturday.”
On where DeWayne Brown has grown on both ends of the floor, if he could be Tennessee’s most consistent forward later in the season
“That’s a great question because you always think freshmen maybe hit a wall in late January. Because if you go back from the beginning, without question DeWayne and Felix (Okpara) have put more time on the court than anybody this summer with guys being hurt. They didn’t get any reps off. And it was a blessing in disguise for both of those guys. And certainly for him to have to go against Felix every day. But he’s got a great basketball IQ. There’s so much more there. And I’ve said before, we’re really excited about our freshmen class. We think it’s a great class. Did we think we’d be playing as much as we are two games into the SEC? Probably not. But they earned it and we’ll do it. We’re going to play the guys (that earn it). And what we’re looking for is dependability. And I’d like to think that we’ll get more guys there. But right now, him probably having the least amount of experience, he has probably been as consistent as any of these guys.
“Fe has missed practice. He hasn’t been able to practice. He’s had a hip pointer. We haven’t talked about it and he’s not gonna miss games. But we’ve had the rest him in practice, keep him out. He doesn’t want be out. But we need JP to get back at it. The way he’s capable of. Jaylen. To answer that question, I hope not. I hope that it’s not just one guy that we can count on. I hope we’re in a position, we can count on every single one of them.”
On Tennessee’s 12 steals defensively
“Well, we again, disciplined defensively and just a total about phase from following the scouting report this game as opposed to last. I mean we were in gaps making plays, going after the ball. Now we, it is kind of too extreme. We had no hand activity at Arkansas. I mean we weren’t— no ball pressure, not enough deflections. And today, there was a lot of fouls and I’m not saying they weren’t fouls but we were active with our hands and so we got to get somewhere in between.
But playing with active hands, deflections gives you a chance to get out in the open court and going after the ball. And if you’re going to go, go get it, don’t go halfway. And if you look, I know some of those fouls tonight is when we went halfway and reached as opposed to really just trying to take it or get our hands out of the way.”
On getting Troy Henderson minutes, what he saw from him
“Again, he’s earned it. We’re going do it. Now, he took an ill-advised shot. At that point in time we got a lead. And that’s what I told our guys, I said, you guys do realize we got the lead, we got to get everybody involved and Troy you can shoot, but that wasn’t the right time for it. He goes in the game and the more he plays too, but he’ll get a chance— he didn’t do anything other than that shot, but we’ll keep playing him because he’ll keep keep working at it.”
On how Tennessee was able to slow down Dailyn Swain, Texas’ leading-scorer, when UT’s best matchup might have been with the injured Cade Philips
“I thought DeWayne Brown did a really good job with his length. He can gap some of those guys, but you know, DeWayne has got the longest reach on the team. You know, we’re worried more about those stretch fours that can shoot it. Fe (Felix Okpara) can get out there and guard pretty much anybody.
“Probably the biggest thing we miss from Cade is his shot blocking. With Fe, he and Cade are legitimate rim protectors and we gotta get J.P. (Estrella) doing it. DeWayne can do it in a different way. You know he is going to do it more with verticality. But we need J.P. doing it, Jaylen (Carey) too, will have to do it with more verticality.”
On if he agrees with Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s assessment that Tennessee’s freshman class is the most mature one Gillespie has been around
“Well, we’re happy with ’em, you know, in terms (of) they come to work. These guys are going — they haven’t been through it and we talked about that, I mean, we got a lot of guys that haven’t played at this level against this competition. As long as they work, and again, Ethan (Burg) didn’t play tonight, we’ll see if he’s going to fight back, you know? Mo (Amaree Abram) didn’t play very much. We felt those guys, we’ve given them a lot of time to do it, and we felt that we had to give Troy (Henderson) a chance. And, you know, Bishop’s continuing to keep getting better and better. Amari (Evans) still makes some big-time plays when we need them. I still think there’ll be games when we’ll play all these guys, and we’ll play ’em all every night, if they prove they can do their job. Because Ja’Kobi got a little winded tonight and Bishop got banged a little bit. But with Ja’Kobi, we felt he was effective and he was for the most part, kept control of the game on offense.”
