Tennessee basketball again blew a double-digit lead on Saturday afternoon, falling to rival Alabama 71-69 on Saturday night in Knoxville. The Vols trailed for less than 30 seconds but trailed at the final buzzer as their five game winning streak against Alabama came to a close.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes discussed being unable to close the game, untimely turnovers and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
More From RTI: Three Quick Takeaways As Tennessee Basketball Blows Another Double-Digit Lead, Falls Against Alabama
On what went wrong for Tennessee in the closing minutes
“I don’t know if it was the last couple minutes. I think first four minutes of the game, last four of the first half, the first four of the second, obviously the last four of the game. They came out and scored eleven straight points to start the second half. And we were able to somewhat hang on there and build the lead back up. But, I’m not sure. We put the pressure on ourselves with the turnovers at the wrong time. I thought a point in the game that was critical, where we could have maybe gave ourselves even more breathing room, Ja’Kobi (Gillespie) was out of the game and we had two bad turnovers at that point.
“Our ball-screen coverage broke down more than anything in the second half. And (Labaron) Philon is a terrific player, but we did not do what we had done the whole first half. They’re an extremely hard to guard, as everybody knows, but when you allow them to reject ball screens and get downhill, those type of things, it makes it even more difficult. And we just blew too many ball-screen coverages.”
On if there’s an update on Nate Ament or a timetable for his return
“No.”
On the biggest differences in the loss, what changed the game for Alabama
“For as many two-point shots as we took, I like to think at some point in time we’re going to get fouled, and then it’s a matter of whether we make free throws. But again, so much of it, Ja’Kobi was great. I mean, you look at what he did, he couldn’t do any more than what he did. And, again, I thought he played his heart out. We had a chance to go up with a couple big defensive rebounds that we didn’t. Our post guys, they’re not going to make all those, but when you have as many offensive rebounds as we have, we should be getting more production out of that and we’re not. And it can’t be just rebounding. If we can’t put it right back up, we do want to kick it out and if we get a good look at it from three, that’s a great time to take a three. But we need more points from our offensive rebounds for certain. But again, start of the second half, not very good. And then even the last four minutes we just put too much on Ja’Kobi.”
On if Nate Ament aggravated his ankle injury from Tennessee’s loss at Missouri or if this was something different
“No, I think when he hurt his knee a little bit. But I did think he did tweaked the foot he had turned at Missouri, that ankle. He tried. If he can’t go, he can’t go. There’s no one tougher than him.”
On if he learned anything about this Tennessee team playing without Nate Ament
“Yeah, it goes back to execution. And it’s not just offensively, but it’s defensive execution. Think about how many points they scored at the rim in the second half. We need some of those, you know? And we might do it a little bit different, but they still got in there and made some shots. We need to do that. But again, there’s no excuse for blowing the ball screen. There wasn’t. I mean, that was one of the first things we put up on the board for the scout. Transition early, when they got some good looks at it early, again, there is no way you ever run back a post down way back underneath the basket. You got to turn around and play. And not everybody was totally locked in the way you have to in a high-level game like this. And in the end, they, they made one more play than we did. And we needed to get a stop, we couldn’t. We needed to come up with a big rebound, we didn’t. We needed to get a basket. I thought, again, we were going to take it hard to the basket there, and thought if we could get it on the glass, score it or get an offensive rebound. We thought it would work our way. Last year it did. Tonight it didn’t.”
On Tennessee freshman Amari Evans filling in for Nate Ament’s minutes
“Amari’s going to be fine. The more he’s out there, the better he’s going to get. He’s not afraid to compete. Like I told him, he’s looking. He’s somewhere in between where he’s not sure he should shoot, when he should shoot and when he shouldn’t. And the more he’s out there, he’ll figure that out because he’s a high-level competitor. And he does a lot of the dirty work that we need him to do. And he’s learned a lot as a freshman, and he’ll keep going because he wants to be good.”
On if the offensive or defensive struggles down the stretch are more worrisome to him
“No. Well, again, it’s a lot easier, I think, to get stops if you do what you practice. We didn’t do what we practice just when they were scoring. We did not do what we practice, what we talked about. Again, I wish I could coach making shots, but we would never miss. And Ja’Kobi he drove in there, threw that lob. He had a wide open shot. He’s got to shoot it. But he got hit in the mouth, and I’m sure that bothered him a little bit. But you got to make plays, and we didn’t make it on the defensive end when we needed to, and when we needed to get a bucket, we couldn’t get it.”
On if tonight was one of the first games where Tennessee got out-physicaled
“Where are you seeing we got out-physicaled? I don’t know where you’re looking at.”
Reporter: “Just in terms of in the paint and getting more physical with the presence of bodies inside.”
Barnes: “I think the game inside has been like that all year. And if it was physical at Missouri, it’ll be physical at South Carolina. No, I don’t think we got out-physicaled. I don’t think that at all.”
On why there’s a disconnect between practice and games for this team
“Oh, yeah. We don’t practice throwing the ball out of bounds. We don’t practice that. We don’t practice calling a set and a player not doing it. That happened a couple times and at this time of year, it can’t happen. It really can’t. I’ll take the blame for that. But it can’t. It just can’t happen. You expect to be in possession games like this, really close, you expect it. And you can’t give some away— and again, I’m not taking anything away from Alabama and Nate. They do a great job but you can’t come out the second half the way we did. Just not locked in the way we were at the start of the game, and we should be. And for us to be great, we have to be like that for 40 minutes. We can’t have the letdown that we had there for that. Can’t give up transition threes. We gave one up early where we tell these guys, getting back is not enough. You gotta get back ready to play, not just here, but every game. But the game was, you know, just a hard-fought game. Both teams played, and they made more plays when they had to than we did. They got a lot of guys that can score the basketball. They do. They can spread you out. Normally they can keep five guys out there that can score. And, again, where we kept them. I think, you look at, they made their threes. They’ve been on fire and able to do that. And if we would’ve stayed with our coverage the way we should have, we could’ve done better, but we didn’t and give them credit for making us break down.”
On if something led to the offensive inconsistency at the rim
“No. I’d have to watch more of the film with it. It’s a hard game to officiate in there, but I’m sure they feel the same way.”
On what lesson he wants his team to learn from blown leads
“It’s not the blown leads, it’s playing 40 minutes. That’s what it is. It’s being able to play for 40 minutes. And you expect runs. I mean, basketball is a game of runs at times, but it doesn’t have to be. But they’re like that because it’s really hard for players to be able to maintain their focus when maybe they turn the ball over, they go down the other end, and they don’t let it go, and they’re not on edge, thinking about what they’re doing right now. That happens a lot where. At this time of year, it doesn’t take much of a letdown for another team to get going.
“And, I think, again, I can say some guys are learning to play these tight games, but we played enough of them, okay? We played enough of them that we ought to be able to, you got to get onto the next possession regardless of what happened and we haven’t been able to do that with a couple guys.”
