After posting a 10-3 in non conference play, Tennessee basketball opens up SEC play on Saturday afternoon at Arkansas. The Vols have won three straight SEC openers dating back to a loss at Alabama in 2022.
Head coach Rick Barnes met with the local media on Friday ahead of the matchup and discussed what stands out about Arkansas, the need to play better on the road and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
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On what changes for Tennessee Basketball when the SEC schedule begins
“Well, I don’t know if there’s a drastic change other than you know that every night you go on the court, the matchups are really close, equal. And it’s about, again, we’re heading in January and we’ve got to get better, like every team. I’m sure every coach is saying the same thing. And it’s not coach talk or coach speak, it’s the truth. I mean, we’ve got to be better than we were last time out. And we’ll say that after every game to get where we really want to go. But it’s the start of conference play and you expect things to get ratcheted up. Just simply because you hope players understand that they’ve got a chance to play for something big.”
On where he thinks this Tennessee team is entering SEC play, the areas where this group can improve
“Every (area). We have done a better job in the last couple games taking care of the ball, but we’ll see what happens once we get up against more like competition. But defensively, consistency, everything that we talk about with our ball-screen defense, which is the utmost (importance). Transition defense will be huge, and not just this game, every game. Our goal every game, really, they don’t change. When we started out with our team, what it’s going to take to win the game, it’s fundamental basketball, it’s transition defense, our ball-screen defense, rebounding and all those type things. And obviously taking care of the basketball. And then we’ve got to continue to work and our players have to work individually for them to continue to get better because the better they become, the better we’re going to be.”
On looking for more consistency from Jaylen Carey and if Tennessee coaches have seen that in practice
“Yeah, I do think (he has), but there’s so much more left in his tank. We watch him every day and there’s just so much more. I mean, he can be so much better as a player and he’s made really good strides. But I just think Jaylen, there’s so much more. And I know he wants to get there and I think he’ll working to get there. Because he does want to be good. He really wants to be an impactful player and he has been. But there’s a level that I think he can get to. And I think he will.”
On what has to happen at Arkansas that didn’t happen at Syracuse, Tennessee’s only other previous true road game so far this season
“Well, we’ve got to be more organized. You go back to the Syracuse game — and even all three of our losses — when things didn’t go well in the first part of the possession, we weren’t organized and it was chaotic. Didn’t have the leadership that we needed. I think over the last couple games we’ve had much, much better organization when things break down from our original flow. And not just from Ja’Kobi (Gillespie) but from other players as well.”
On what stands out about this Arkansas team
“Fast, talented obviously. John, great respect for him and what he does and you knew it wouldn’t take him long to get what he wanted, the kind of program he wanted to build at Arkansas. And he did one of the great coaching jobs a year ago when you started out 0-5 and put yourself in a position to do what they did at the end of the year is obviously a tribute to him and also to his players. And he’ll continue to— his teams always get better and they have gotten better from the beginning of the year to where they are right now. And they’ll continue to get better.”
On if he thinks Tennessee’s academic calendar, classes not starting until Jan. 20, helps them
“I don’t know about that. These are the tough days for teams. I mean, whether we’re in school or out of school, we’ve got really a system that we follow. And I think it’s tougher on players a little bit too because there’s nobody around here as much. It’s not as inactive. And I can tell you after a couple weeks here, they’ll look forward to getting back in school. They really will. Just to change things up because it’s different obviously, our schedule this year, a lot of late games, but again, they just get through it.”
On Arkansas’ offensive success against Houston
“One, I think Arkansas has learned from that game, just like we’ve learned from our games. And I think they’re a different team. They got down in that game against Arkansas (Houston), but started really going after it, turning them over, but we play obviously different than Houston and Arkansas, but they present a lot of problems because they really drive the ball well. They’ve got some really good isolation players and John does a really good job of putting guys in positions to where they can be successful.
But we’ve just got to, we do, we really are always— we’re going to do our game planning and what we think we need to do, but we’re always going to be more concerned about ourselves and what we need to do and we’re going to have to take care of the ball. We’re going to have to get back in transition because they really put the ball on top of you make or miss and they’ll go get it, they’ll rebound it and they’ve got some guys that can, they get going. They can really light you up. I mean Darius Acuff right now has probably put himself in position to where he’s got to be mentioned for player of the year type candidate because of what he’s doing. And John’s always done well with guys. He’s taken guards like that early and he’s had a bunch of them and he’s getting them to play the way that he wants him to play.”
On the conversations with Tennessee freshman Nate Ament heading into his first SEC game
“Oh, you know, Nate’s a big boy. He is. He knows. I mean, he’s so unselfish — the ultimate team player. You know, I go back — and I don’t know what people think — but if you go back to a year ago this time when we were at Texas and I took Chaz Lanier out the first play of the second half because he didn’t shoot the ball, because he was still trying to understand what he was into. I think Nate’s done a great job up to this point, and Chaz had played three years of college basketball, and Nate’s in his first year and has done a lot of wonderful things. He’ll continue ’cause he wants to be a complete player. You look at what he’s done, he’s already helped us win a lot of basketball games. He’s just getting started.
“But you don’t have to — I mean, Nate’s smart. He looks at it himself. He knows what he needs to do and the conversations we have with him is what we have with everybody — just let the game come to you. You’re a terrific player and no need to put pressure on yourself, just be who you are and he’ll end up showing he’s one of the best players in the country.”
On what makes Tennessee senior guard Amaree Abram good at getting deflections
“Just effort. That’s a mentality. That’s part of, again, Amaree I think realizes — you know, he asked the question, what do we need to do to play? What does he need to do to play? And we said, ‘play defense.’ Make those hustle plays. Do the little things that a lot of people don’t want to do and some guys can pick it up and do it, which he has. ‘Cause he wants to play and he’s earned it. We haven’t given him anything like we haven’t given anybody. Everybody that plays, they’ve earned what they get, but Amari didn’t enjoy sitting there and asked the question, ‘what do I need to do to play?’ And we said, ‘we’ll tell you the same thing we told you from our very first conversation, do this, this, and this,’ and you’ll find a way to get on the court and he’s done it.”
On if his rotation is still fluid heading into conference play
“I think our strength is in the numbers and whoever’s getting it done is going to go and if somebody’s not, it’d be a night where maybe they don’t get the minutes they like. But some way, somehow, that could be a great motivational tool for each one of them, knowing that they better be on edge every game ready to go. If not — we’ve got a very unselfish team — I don’t think anybody’s sitting over there thinking, well, I should be playing. I think they know if they do what they need to do, they’ll get their minutes. If not, they will sit.”
