Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes met with the media on Thursday afternoon as the Vols continue to build their roster for his 12th season as head coach.
Barnes discusses what Tennessee has done in the portal to date, adding new assistant coach Earl Grant, what is left in the portal and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
More From RTI: What Rick Barnes Said About Hiring Earl Grant As Tennessee Basketball Assistant Coach
On the phone call he had with Earl Grant that led to hiring him as an assistant coach on Tennessee’s staff, replacing Justin Gainey
“Well obviously I’d heard great things about Earl long before he became a head coach at Charleston. And I was there one day, and I’m not even sure how it came about, but I ended up going by Charleston. We were going to talk a little bit of basketball. I think we had an hour planned, but I think it turned into three hours. And I’ve always had the utmost respect for him. But I actually just called him to talk to him about some of his players. And really, God put it on my heart that, ‘Hey, this is a guy you need to be talking to about a job.’ And I didn’t say anything that first call, but then I called back and started talking about it. And there was no doubt in my mind. He was the only person I talked to. I didn’t talk to anybody else. But I just I thought he made a great statement to me that really got me fired up. He said, ‘I haven’t been looking for a job. I’ve been looking for an assignment.’ And I said, ‘Well, I got you a good one.’ I’m excited because he’s a terrific coach. Been a head coach for 12 years, but just an incredible, impeccable reputation in the business. I know that we’re very similar in our approach to the game. He loves defense. I love it. But he’s going to bring a wealth of experience, and believe me, we hit a grand slam there.”
On the call back to Grant to talk about the Tennessee job
“I think he thought I was probably calling him back to talk about his players. I said, ‘I’m not calling back for that. I’m talking about you.’ And then I did. That’s right. I don’t know. I just felt that God made it clear that, hey, this is the right guy at the right time. And I’m really excited. Personally, really, I’ve got the utmost confidence in him. And I go back to that time we spent together in Charleston talking basketball. You could feel his love for the game and wanting to learn. and that’s what we all have to keep trying to do. But really, it’s a good one for us.”
On if Grant will run Tennessee’s defense
“Yeah, he will.”
On what he feels Tennessee needs to to do with the remaining open spots on roster
“Well, obviously we’re waiting on a couple guys to see and depending on how that falls in place, we’ll determine which way we go.”
On what kind of conversations he’s had with Tennessee freshman Nate Ament about the NBA and what’s next for him
“Nate is so special. Obviously we love him to death. And I just think that honestly, when he goes through this process that any and every team he sits down in front of, they’re going to see the same things that we see. There’s so much more to him than what you see on the court basketball-wise. Right now there’s no ceiling for him. He’s really hasn’t even scratched the surface. But it’s everything else he brings. I mean, he’s the kind of guy that any franchise, certainly the University of Tennessee, we want him to be the face of the program, and every franchise will see that too. It’s just amazing what he did in one year here, so much of it off the court. I cannot tell you everywhere I’ve ever gone, people want to talk to me about Nate Ament. Up there when he goes through that (NBA Draft) process, they’re going to quickly realize that same thing.”
On what they’ve talked about with Nate Ament in terms of his NBA decision
“There’s nothing to talk about. The fact of the matter is, I don’t see how he can’t go to the NBA because I think he’s one of the top players in the country. But I think everybody thinks there’s this long, drawn out (situation). You go through the process, gather all the information you can. He will do that, and he’s going to make the right decision. But personally, I think I already know what the decision is, because I know how good a basketball player he is. But only the good Lord knows for certain. But again, you go through the process and that’s what he’s doing. He’s doing it. And his agency, they’re doing their deal and they’re going to get all the facts they need, and they’ll go from there.”
On how important it was for Tennessee to retain a player like Dewayne Brown
“We certainly appreciate his loyalty and the fact that from the time he sat down in the meeting, he said, ‘This is where I want to be. I want to continue to grow.’ And he’s just got a great future. Next year I think is going to be a breakout year for him. But he’s been working extremely hard since the season has been over with. And again, we just appreciate him.”
On his confidence in Brown and Troy Henderson carrying Tennessee’s culture forward
“We will, but I think the kind of guy— I mean, people forget we had 11 new players last year. We did. And, I think, again, we want our players, but we’re such a hands-on program as coaches, the experience that we have. We’re gonna continue our, if you want to say culture, whatever it is— our standard. I’d rather say our standard, where that’s not gonna change anywhere about this program. We’re not going to ever lower it. Matter of fact, we’ll raise the bar every year. We’ve done that, and we’ll continue to do it with this group coming in. But we’ve got guys that want to be coached. Through the intel that we’ve done, we knew once we brought them on campus, this is who we wanted. We wanted to get it done with them. We had no questions, these were the guys we wanted, and we’ve been good so far with it. But these guys are— they’ve produced. They put a lot in the book, and that’s what we were looking for. We were looking for production over retention, and I think we’ve done that. But these guys are, they’ll build their own team. You got to do it every year anyway. It doesn’t matter if you got guys coming back, a bunch of guys, you still have to build a new team every year.”
On Terrence Hill and Dai Dai Ames being combo guards, how they envision balancing point guard duties
“Again, they’re ball guards to us. They’ll both, they’ll do their deal. Both of them are so good in so many different areas and that’ll all work out. But the fact is they wanted to play together and they talk about winning. That’s what they talk about. They want to win, they want to win at the highest level. They want to get to the tournament and have a chance to go deep into it. And the way we look at things now, we look at three positions. We look at a ball guard, wings and big guys. We don’t have a power forward, center. We don’t look at it like that. And I think the more you can get versatility at every position, that’s what you want, and that’s what we’ve tried to do with this class.”
On if he feels like they have addressed the need for shooting in the portal
“No doubt. We feel like we’ve done that. I mean, certainly Tyler Lundblade brings along the lines of obviously the last couple years, Chaz and Dalton— different player. Totally, all of them are different. But I can tell you he that— he’s possessed with wanting to get better in everything. He wants to not just be known as a guy that can shoot behind the three-point line. He’s gonna be a guy that I think can score at different levels. But he’s got an unbelievable work ethic. Guys like that, along with what you talked about, Troy, those guys all help continue to take our standard up.”
On if there’s a type of big man you still want to add
“How do you know we haven’t added some and haven’t told you? That’s what you should be asking. And the answer to that is yes, but we’re not gonna tell you. But the fact is as we look at what we have left, we want to make sure that, again, that we got guys that certainly understand the physicality in this league. And we address that with what we have and what we have left.”
On what excited him the most about the group they have added
“No, I just think as a group of guys that once we Zoom with them or they come on campus, there’s just something there that this is who we want to go through this with. Whether it’s a seriousness in approach. But we’re very transparent in how we do things. We want people to want that, and we want people that their goal is to play in the NBA. We want that. And understanding that together, we’re going to work hard to help them get better, and along the way, them getting better is gonna get our program better. And in the end, we hope to break through and get done what we want to get done.”
On if they want to add any more big men in addition to the silent commit they have
“I haven’t looked at the board today. I think we’ll fill our roster. I do. I do think we’ll do that. You know, before we’re done, fill it. We’ll have a full roster.”
On what he hopes for Nate Ament in his next basketball chapter
“I want him to be who he is because I think he’s special. I think he impacts lives in so many different ways. Basketball wise, he’s going to take care of that. He’s one of the most balanced people I’ve ever been around. He has a great way to impact people, really cares about people. I don’t want him to, and he won’t. He’s such a humble individual. He cares about people. But basketball-wise, he’s I mean, he’s gonna be extremely successful there. But all the other things that he does that maybe people know about, maybe they don’t, he won’t lose that either.”
On why Tennessee has signed every player it has brought to campus for a visit to this point
“Our coaching staff. There’s no doubt. The job that our quote, unquote, “front office” did throughout the whole year, Scotty (director of strategy Scott Daughtry) and Lucas Campbell, what they did — along with the coaches. The coaches are all so involved. As we scout, talk, we watch; you’re always thinking about this time of year. But our staff, phenomenal job. Not just comprising what we knew from not just the analytical side, but from the intel, but understanding how we wanted to improve our team. I’ve said it before, I think we’ve got the most experienced, best staff in the country. They’re the reason we’ve had success with these guys coming on campus here.
“Once you get them here, so many support people help us with our visits, but I’ve said it to you many times before, we show it just like it is. We’re not — we often say, ‘don’t get recruited. We don’t wanna recruit you. We just wanna show you what we got, and if it’s good enough, and if it’s what you want, we want you to be here, or you wouldn’t be here.’ And we’ve tried to make an effort to — the guys that we brought on campus, we knew that we wanted them. It wasn’t like we were wondering if we wanted them. We knew that once they got here, we’d want them.”
On how he and his coaching staff can have an impact on their players in today’s era where they’re not with them for multiple years
“Well, I’ve had people I’ve been around for an hour, and they’ve left an impact on my life. I’ve had some, maybe the other way, but the fact is you can have an impact on somebody’s life — anybody you meet, you know? But with our players, I can just tell you this, because of the experience that we have and the kind of coaches I have, we wanna make a difference in their lives by, one, when they’re here with us, we’re gonna give them everything we have. We’re gonna be consistent. We’re gonna work as hard as — I’ve always said we’re gonna out-work them because we’ve been around. Most of us have had a chance to be very successful in this business for a while, and we all end up — again, I take it from Coach Grant. I think as you get older, and I think he said it best, it’s no longer a job, it’s an assignment. We feel like we’re on assignment and our assignment is to help these guys grow on and off the court. Obviously, you know my relationship with Christ is important to me, and we’ve never pushed that on anybody, but we’re gonna be who we are. All of us. We’re gonna be who we are. We spend more time with these guys than you can possibly think of because they mean that much to us, and we’re gonna continue to do that because, one, we recruit the kind of players that you wanna be around. Like, you can’t get enough of guys that — so we do this because we love the game, but we love them.”
On how conversations he’s had with new Tennessee assistant coach Earl Grant have had an impact on him
“I can just tell you, the other night when I called and talked about a couple of his players, after I hung up, I mean, he had an impact (on me), just the way he handled it. When you lose your job — I mean, it happened to me eleven, twelve years ago. You go through a period to where you somewhat — you’re a little bit numb about it. I was so impressed, and when I brought him here just a couple days later for the spring football game, and from the time I met he and Jacci, and we drove right from the airport right to the spring football game. First thing I did, I went up in the Founders Suite, and Mr. Haslam was there in his box and introduced him. Just the way they both handled that, then we go down with Danny (White), who’s at the other end with his staff. I just left him, and when I came back, everybody in that room said, ‘Man, this guy’s good.’ What impressed me was, there’s a lot of people after losing their job, they’re like, ‘what’s next?’ And he wasn’t sure what was next. I know he had chances to be a head coach again, but he wasn’t going to just jump at something. But the way he handled himself, and then we had a recruiting visit that night, and I remember when we walked into the restaurant, he and I came in together, and Jacci, and she sat down, and he went around the whole room. There must have been fifteen people there. And the way he took command of the room, his confidence. But to be honest with you, that’s how I’ve always seen him. I’ve never seen him in a situation that he wasn’t comfortable. But I sat there and watched him ’cause I was like — and at the time, he had a chance to go to another great university, that I did not know when I called him the first time that he was at that place. I didn’t know it, and it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d still said what I said, but I didn’t know it.
“I’m just thankful that God brought him here. He has an assignment here and he knows it’s more than basketball. He’s got a beautiful family. He’s gonna impact this program in more ways than just what he does on the basketball court.”
