Tennessee basketball played one of its more complete games of the season Wednesday night, rolling Oklahoma 89-66 on Wednesday night in Knoxville
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes discussed doing a better job taking care of the basketball, another big night from Nate Ament and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
More From RTI: Rick Barnes Explains Why He’s ‘Upset’ With Tennessee PF JP Estrella While He Battles Foot Injury
On Tennessee matching a season-low with seven turnovers
“Well, it’s what we’ve been preaching all year, about taking care of the ball. Because we lead the league in offensive rebounding, but you can’t do that if you keep turning the ball over. And it was a really good win for us. I mean, (Oklahoma coach) Porter (Moser) does such a great job with his team, and (they’re) really really hard to guard defensively and they were playing great coming in. And we knew that if we gave them a lot of opportunities off turnovers, that they would make us pay. And they did a great job of that. So it was a critical thing that we’ve been talking about all year, and hopefully we can build on.”
On what Tennessee’s defense did well to slow down Oklahoma
“For the most part, I thought we stayed within the scouting report, personnel-wise. We knew that, again, they’re a very explosive team. They’ve proven that for so many games this year. And Felix (Okpara) is a guy that, our rim-protection numbers are down a lot of it because of him being away from the basket, because he’s the one post guy that we know can switch and guard any player in the league out there, any guard. But I just thought for the most part, we stayed in tune with what we needed to do with our scouting report.”
On if Felix Okpara is getting switched onto guards on the perimeter or if that’s part of Tennessee’s defensive game plan
“Well, so many people are playing four guys out, sometimes five. I mean, they at times can play five. We worked hard yesterday at playing against five guards, because they’ve done that. I mean, Porter, he knows what he’s doing and he’s kept searching, just like we all have this year, to put together whatever it’s going to take to win a basketball game in this league. And when teams are spread like that, uh, it’s going to bring Felix away from the basket. And like I said, we think that he can guard anybody out there.”
On Ja’Kobi Gillespie setting a program single-game record with eight steals
“I thought he was just mentally slowed down. A lot of things slowed down for him. I’ve seen that happen with Nate (Ament) over the last couple of weeks. But for Ja’Kobi seeing it, I think he’s seeing the game the way that he needs to see it. And defensively, he does have great instincts. He’s quick. You guys see it. If he’s that quick on offense, he should be that quick on defense. And he’s getting himself in the right position, which is obviously important. But what he did was, I think it was eight assists, one turnover, eight steals. I mean, you get your point guard playing at that (level). And Bishop (Boswell) is now at the point where you can take (Gillespie) off the ball. Nate’s handling the ball a little bit more in transition after a missed shot. I think all that, allowing him to get off the ball a little bit, helps him. But I just thought he was, from what we wanted to get done offensively, when he was out front leading the charge, I thought he knew exactly what he was looking for and found it.”
On what keeps Tennessee from limiting turnovers in more games, like the Vols did against Oklahoma
“I think our guys play really hard defensively. And that’s just flat-out sheer effort, determination. And it’s just like you got the gas down and just, fighting through the screens, once you get the ball back, you’ve got to slow down. You’ve got to see it. You can’t play at that (speed on offense). That’s where I think Bishop has gotten better and he still has to get better, where you can’t play with that same mindset on the offensive end. And it’s like I’ve told him before, there’s times when you’re on the interstate, that’s defense, where you just got to go, you got to get it done, whatever you need to do. On the offensive end, it’s like driving in the city. And every game is different. We have to start every game trying to figure out how they’re goin to play ball screens, how they’re gonna play Ja’Kobi, how they’re going to play Nate. What are they going to do in our against our break? Are they going to be in a drop coverage there? Are they going to do a lot of switching? All that goes on within a game. And really, the answer for Ja’Kobi, that’s where I think he’s gotten better and better, recognizing those type of things. I thought he was aware if they went zone, I thought he had command there.
“And even tonight, guarding these guys, I mean, Nigel Pack is a hard guy to guard. And he got his numbers, but I thought Ja’Kobi really worked. was really… Other than one time where he, I don’t know if he tripped or if he was trying to get a steal, where we freed him up, and he got one at the top of the key. I don’t know what happened. He got himself out of play. And Amari (Evans) I think, tried to help, but we got confused there. Those are spontaneous plays that we’d like to think we can fix it, but we we didn’t.”
On Nate Ament’s ability as a passer and playmaker in Tennessee’s offense, his passing making a difference in the second half
“That is him seeing the game in a totally different way than he did a month and a half ago, a month ago. I mean, it started at Florida. But he is seeing the court. And he’s an all-everything player, and he can play anywhere on the court. I thought the play with he and Dwayne Brown, when he saw it, they saw it from the beginning. And Dwayne is a really good passer. The one (Ament) dunked there. He has started to talk and tell guys things that are going on. He is really starting to recognize when guys are trying to screen, switch, whatever it may be, where he’s really starting to learn how to read defenses. And he’s not fighting it. He’s just kinda going with it. And he had a couple of really good plays tonight where they guarded the ball screen. We popped, and he chased it. Those kind of plays, where he’s gotten, he’s just seeing the game on a totally different level.”
On how good of a passer Nate Ament is
“Best passer on the team. I mean, he’s a guy to go back and look. I’ve told the guys that, not only is he a guy who can cut, but he is a great passer. We love putting him in ball screens because he can get up over people, and he’s a willing passer. We like him with the ball in his hand. Even at the end of the game, that puts Ja’Kobi off the ball, where they have a hard time leaving him, and if Nate can get an angle, get downhill, get to a spot, and if our post guys get off of it, he can get behind the defender— he’ll make the right read.”
On leadership responded when Oklahoma made its second half run
“Well, again, give them credit. They came out and they driving the ball. They wanted to get to the line quick and they did. And, at one time, they were driving the ball, driving the ball, and we were settling for some jump shots. But Nate, again, in the timeout one time, he said, ‘hey, we got this lead by playing defense.’ And we started fouling them, putting them on the line. What were at the free throw line? They ended up, in the second half, that’s what they were doing. They were just driving the ball at us and getting fouled.
‘And I thought we settled back down and did a better job of staying in front of them, not fouling, not bailing them out, and we started driving the ball. So ‘okay, they’re gonna go at it. We’re gonna go at it,’ and these officials in our league are really good, and all you want are right calls, and they were consistent with that.”
On if he’s ever aware of a player’s career highs in a game
“No, until I was getting him out of the game with a minute to go, and Bishop asked me to leave him in. And I wouldn’t normally do that, but I did it out of their respect for Nate, because, again, the game was over at that point in time, and my thought was to get him out. But Bishop said, ‘Coach, come on, let him try to get it,’ and so we gave him a chance. But I was getting ready to take him out.”
On if Felix Okpara turned a corner against Oklahoma
“Yeah, I mean, we told him, ‘It’s about doing your job. Simply do your job,’ and when he screens and gets behind that. He’s as good a lob threat as there is in the country, and if he’ll get there, those guys will do it, but he did. He rebounded. He went back to doing that, and again, I wish we could keep him down there to protect the rim more. He actually had a couple of really good defensive plays. He did, where he did impact around the rim tonight. He blocked a shot, and did some good things, stayed down. And he can be that. He can be that every night. He really can.
“I thought one of the most impressive things on the stat sheet was that Amari Evans didn’t score a point, but he was in the game. He was a plus-20. I thought he did a lot of good things for a freshman. You watch him continuing to come into his own. He went through a period where he was playing well, and he got away from his role. Just really worked hard back in practice to earn his way back in there, and he made the most of it tonight.”
On if the player led communication is what he envisioned for this team
“Well, I envisioned it back in December. It’s now February, yeah, that’s what we envisioned, but it’s taken us longer than we thought. But we’ve had, like every team, we’ve had to work through situations. You go back to JP, he was hurt and worked his way back in. He’s out again, and it all works out. For some reason, I think that guys stay together as a team, but when they start seeing it and coaching and start saying to me, ‘Coach, do this or do that,’ most of the time I’m going to listen to them because when they’re that locked in, they’re out there playing.
And I am watching it, but they’re playing. They see it, and when they start communicating with each other to play, like Nate and DeWayne Brown set that up. I like to make it a play, because if I tried to make them play, it wouldn’t work. But it just those unscripted, instinctive plays, and when you got guys that can play, they see it, they talk, you love it.”
On if Nate Ament finding another gear at the Florida game is when he would have expected it
“Well, yeah. I mean, first of all, I told, talking to the TV people today at shoot around— Nate Ament has been great all year. I mean, you go back, I mean, the first couple of weeks, he was freshman of the, whatever you call that award, what, four or five times early? He’s never been bad. I think that, again, I don’t read the social media stuff, and I told him the time we had— I said, ‘I don’t know if you are or not, but you just got to lock in and let things go.’ And I think he put a lot of self-pressure on himself because he’s a perfectionist. I mean, he wants to play the game at a high level. He has high expectations. But from a physicality standpoint, I knew it would take him up to (January). Same thing happened to Kevin Durant. Exact same thing. He hit January and the first couple games, and I can tell you, as I can close my eyes right now, we were playing Texas Tech, and he went out there, and I remember Coach (Bob) Knight shook my hand at the end of the game, he said, ‘man, that guy’s got it.’ That was his big — he had had some good games like that, but he took off from that point.
“They figure it out, that it is more physical than they thought. As physical as we try to make it without us getting somebody hurt in practice. They got to go through it. They’ve got to go through it and I wouldn’t trade Nate for anybody, because he’s come in here and has done everything and more. And I told him that, what, before the Florida game. I said, ‘come on, man, you got nothing to hold your head down about. Just, let’s go. It’s go time right now. Getting to the top of the mountain now, the altitude is getting thin and we’re going to — the strong survive. It’s time to go. It’s time to go. And he’s embraced it and he’ll expect more, you know? He’ll expect more.”
On how important it is for Ja’Kobi Gillespie to continue to defend the way he did against Oklahoma
“Well, I think it shows what we’ve been trying to tell him: he’s a complete player, if he wants to be, you know? Handling the ball, knowing when to shoot the ball, knowing when to get his teammates (involved), knowing what teammates to get involved at what time, all that.
“And again, Ja’Kobi (has) never been put in a situation like this, where he’s probably the number one target every night. He and Nate, you know, they got big bullseyes on their back every single night. They’re the two guys that they’re going to start their scouting report about every night. We do the same thing with the other team, and they’re doing the same thing with us.
“And we actually back, I think I told you guys, we put together a scouting report about ourselves in the middle of the year. We always do that. We’ll do it again sometime later on down the road here. We’ll say here’s what they’re saying about you, you better get ready and embrace it, because — and Ja’Kobi, he’s been better in practice trying to. Some days I’ve told — I told him the other day, I don’t want you to shoot any shots. I want you to run this team. I told guys to really guard him to where he wasn’t open. I said, ‘I want to see you do it.’ He did a great job this week doing it, and he carried it over tonight.”
On if he believes some of the pressure Nate Ament puts on himself is because how talented his freshman class is nationally
“I don’t think so. I know Nate has grown up playing against those guys. He’s played against all of them. He knows them. I think they all have a great respect for each other. I think that they, you know, they’re going to be playing against each other for a long time, but I think Nate’s pressure that he was putting on himself is just internal pressure where he has such high demands, expectations for himself. He knew it was going to be hard, and we talked about it, but he didn’t know it was going to be this hard. He didn’t.
“I mean, and again, I’ve said it, he’s never been a guy that chased guards around the court. He’s never been guarded by a lot of 6-foot-6 guys that are big, strong, trying to get under him. I mean, there’s so many things he’s gone through this year for the first time, and he’s obviously adjusted, and he’s getting better. And I will tell him tomorrow, he’s got to get better. He’s not where he needs. He’s just getting started in this game, and he’s got to get better.”
On JP Estrella injury status
“I know, based on what Chad told me, the x-rays and all that didn’t show anything. But he’s got some soreness there. He knows his body better than anybody. It’ll be based on what he feels, but we knew we were going to hold him tonight.”
On how he felt Tennessee forwards Jaylen Carey and DeWayne Brown filled in for J.P. Estrella
“I thought they were good. Jaylen got frustrated. You know, he wasn’t making his free throws, and then he lost his way a little bit. He should have been kicking the ball out. We tell him that. But he’s competitive. He’s competitive. But some of those shots he can’t shoot. We’re not throwing up hope shots. And we want to get fouled. So, like, you know, you give him credit for getting fouled. I mean, that’s an important stat, but you’d at least like to come away with one point on that possession.
“But Jaylen has gotten so much better defensively, and we want him to do that. We want him to understand he can impact a game other ways than scoring the ball. He doesn’t have to score it every time he gets it, but he’s gotten so much better with his defense.”
On when the soreness started
“I am upset with him. We tell those guys we don’t care if it is a little sore. I think it had been sore and he didn’t tell anybody because I think he wants to play so badly. It was probably there before he let Chad know it. So you’d have to ask him exactly, but I think it was sore before he let us know it because he wants to really help this team and his teammates. But he can’t do that. He has had that problem with that foot. That is something that you can’t mess around with.”
On concern for Estrella with it being the same foot he injured last year
“Oh yeah, I don’t think there’s any question it is a concern for him. Feet problems are hard to get right. But based on where the screw was placed and all that — and again I probably shouldn’t be talking about it because Chad knows it. But I don’t think that is a problem where the surgery itself (happened). It’s just some soreness set in and we just have to get it quieting down.”
