FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Tennessee basketball dropped its SEC opener 86-75 at Arkansas on Saturday afternoon. A scoring drought cost Tennessee in the second half and the Vols were unable to get enough stops to earn their first road win of the season.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes discussed the struggles down the stretch, Amari Evans’ strong performance and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
More From RTI: Three Quick Takeaways As Tennessee Basketball Falls At Arkansas In SEC Opener
On Tennessee’s 11 missed free throws in the loss
“Well, we’re going to be that kind of team, like I told the team every game is we’re going struggle all year, and when you have a chance to get back in the game, you can’t make them. When you got a chance to stretch it out, you can’t make them. And I don’t think we have a guy on a team that doesn’t think he can make them, but they’re going to have to make it when the lights are on. But that just puts so much more pressure on everything that you do. Puts pressure on your defense. You want to run some things, but then you start thinking, well, if they get fouled, are they going to make the free throws? Guys that you want to be aggressive, they go pick up fouls and don’t make free throws. It really just continues to put pressure on every other part of the game.”
On common denominators in games getting out of hand in Tennessee losses to Kansas, Illinois and now Arkansas
“Yeah, inconsistency with guys that you’re counting on. I think you give Arkansas a lot of credit. They blocked 10 shots. We missed 14 shots at the rim, well, they actually blocked nine, because one of those was a goaltend that the referees didn’t call. But that’s not the difference in the game. But we didn’t … and they made layups.
“We had a four-point lead. The three-point play, four-point play is a momentum changer for them. And then we get down to the end, we had too many just blown coverages with our post guys. And that’s probably the most disappointing thing. Of our four post guys, Felix, who hadn’t practiced for the last two days, a little bit of a hip pointer, I thought played was more prepared than the other three guys. And we need everybody. We’re a good basketball team, they’re a good basketball team. But we did too many things that go into losing, and that’s why we lost. You got to call a timeout when you can get the ball in bounds. Little things like that. But free throws, I mean, it hurts because you could say, we make our free throws, but again, they made layups at the rim. We didn’t. They made their free throws, we didn’t. And they won. Again, they won it because they did the things that were necessary to win it and we didn’t.”
On how difficult it is to win on the road when key guys aren’t giving them what they need
“Well you can’t. You can’t win. I mean, this league is too good. And again, I mean, Arkansas is a really good team. And we’re good enough to be anybody in the country. We really are, but we’re not going to beat anybody in the country if we don’t take care of the details. It’s the plays that they have to make consistency that they don’t want to make. Everybody thinks their best offensive play is what wins games. It’s not. What wins games are those things. Getting back, we gave up two transition dunks where guys just simply got ran by. It was the very first thing that was on our scouting report. They really can be an explosive transition team, and you can’t let somebody run by you early in the game. And those are the plays that when you look at it, or like, those are effort plays. That’s mental. All that. And those are the plays that you dig yourself in a hole with, and we have a chance to get out and maybe get something going and put more pressure on them, but they played better. They deserved to win.”
On Arkansas guard Darius Acuff
“Tough. He’s tough. He’s playing as well as any player that we’ve played against all year. He’s a three level scorer. Really like his demeanor. John (Calipari) has always done well with guys like him. He puts them in great position to be who they are, and gets him to play really well with his teammates. But he has a really good knack of when he needs to go get something done himself. And right now, again, he’s played against us as well as anybody we played against all year.”
On pushing the tempo early in the game
“That’s our best basketball. We do that. We want to get out and keep running. That’s what we want to do. I mean, we want to run every possession. But then when you get down, and then you got to make sure you get down, You got to make sure if somebody’s going to and when to run and playing like that, they’re playing. And that’s what we want. We don’t want to be a joystick type team. We believe what we do works if guys execute it. But then if you get down and you’re not making free throws, and you’re thinking, well, we got to make sure the guy gets involved here, if he does get fouled, you’ve got to go make free throws. But there is no doubt that our best offense is when we’re in transition. No doubt. And I would say that for most teams because it’s hard. I mean, they’re a long team, quick jumpers. And I think our post guys, we keep telling them we’re going to get position in there, but that’s just part of the deal. They’ve got to be able to be quicker, to get off their feet and get up and finish the ball and finish it, and then they get fouled. They got to make free throws.”
On him and John Calipari being tied for career wins amongst active head coaches
“Well, I’ve got as much respect for John as anybody, and we’ve been buddies since what, I think we met in 1976, something like that, at the University of Pittsburgh summer basketball camp, and we’ve been friends ever since then. And he still had one more year of school left, in college. But we were at that camp, and I actually won the camp championship, and my starting point guard was (Texas head coach) Sean Miller. He was nine years old, and so what you asked me is, we’re pretty old. But I have so much respect, and he’s everywhere he’s ever been he’s won. He’s a guy that really cares about this game. He’s not afraid to speak out about it when he sees issues, and he’s an out of the box thinker too, and but he does, not only does he win where he goes, but he really cares about the college game, and wants to see it better.”
On Arkansas’ physicality
“I would say their athleticism helped them as much because, I mean, we were moving guys around, and they — John’s gonna make the adjustments that he needs to make. But offensively, our guys, you look at it inside, DeWayne (Brown II) was 3-for-7, but he had two shots blocked he’s got to score. Felix (Okpara) was 1-for-3, and I know he missed a layup on a roll, but Jaylen (Carey) was 3-for-8. He had what, two shots blocked? Is that right? Or four? What was it? I think he had four shots blocked, and he’s a guy that’s strong and agile, but he’s got to get off the ground, and all they did was come block his shot. And he got the ball, but he wasn’t able to get it up over his —we talk about chin to rim — didn’t get it up quick enough.
“But give them credit. I mean, we’re different. Both teams are a little bit different in different ways. I know that we’re going to get better. We’re going to have to get better, but I know that we can. We’ve got to make some of these layups and we got to make some of these free throws.”
On how Darius Acuff Jr. compares to some of the great players he’s coached
“Watching him right now, this early in January, I’m really impressed. And really we saw him, obviously in high school when he was at the prep school. But what I’m most impressed with is, is his body, the way he’s carried himself, his demeanor. That’s what I’m most impressed with. I mean, he can score it and plays within himself. He really does. He’ll keep getting better defensively, like all freshmen do, that’s just part of the process. But offensively, he’s got a real knack for it. But what I’m most impressed with is his demeanor, how he runs his team and knows when to go try to get his and knows when he needs to get some other guys involved. And for a freshman in early January, it’s pretty impressive.”
On Tennessee freshman forward Nate Ament’s performance
“Nate, he’s going to keep getting better. You know, he is. There’s no doubt about it. We went with him at the four for the first time tonight. We’ve been playing around with it in practice a little bit, simply because our other post guys that we normally play with weren’t getting it done.”
On how important the performance of Tennessee freshman forward Amari Evans was
“Well, Amari was terrific. Amari is who he is. He’s going to compete. He’s played like that, it doesn’t matter who we play against, he’s done that. He’s playing because he’s earned it. He’s not afraid to compete. He’s going to go in and — I mean, I did not think this time of year we would be playing as many freshmen as we’re playing. We didn’t expect that. Now, we’ve said all along we had a really good recruiting class with our freshman class, but we still thought those older guys would be playing more than these guys. But the fact of the matter is, the freshmen have earned their minutes, and he’s one of them that’s done that.”
