Tennessee basketball picked up a crucial SEC win Tuesday night, knocking off Texas A&M 87-82 in double overtime in Knoxville. The Vols trailed for the majority of the game and did not lead by double digits until the final two minutes of overtime, but found a way to get it done.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes discussed Nate Ament’s late surge, responding to adversity and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
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On Tennessee coming back from down 11 points to beat Texas A&M in double overtime
“Really proud of them. We spent a lot, a lot of time in prep, obviously with (Texas A&M’s) style of play. Playing against a lot more players on the court. And I was honestly disappointed early that when guys were open they weren’t making the pass and the guys didn’t do exactly what we had practiced. But got to give A&M (credit), and Bucky (McMillan has) done a really good job of his style and what he plays and how he does it. But I thought it was the game kept going, we kept getting better, especially in the second half. Made some adjustments, played more with Nate (Ament) at the four than we have all year. But I thought our defense, we made adjustments and a couple times out of that adjustment, and I think just simply out habits, we knew we were going to really work hard taking away the three. And we had a couple guys that still rotated in and gave up those quick threes.
“But I’m really proud of the guys. Just their grit. It was really neat in the huddle with them. They stayed together, they kept finding a way. It’s not going to be the prettiest game and we haven’t played against a style like that all year, but we found a way. I thought a lot of good things. I thought Nate, (has played well) two games in a row now. He started off and we sat him down. And I thought while he was there, something happened because he started seeing the game totally differently when he came on the court. His ball-handling was certainly a big key in the game in the second half. And then we went back big in the second overtime, Jaylen came up with some big plays.
“I thought Felix (Okpara) was excellent. Bishop (Boswell), after the game he had Saturday, I thought came back and made some really big plays, rebounded the ball. But everybody tonight that played made a difference in the game. Troy (Henderson) got his most significant minutes and I thought his three was a huge three and (he) played with the kind of confidence that we liked. Just a good overall win against a really well-coached, tough opponent. And all I can say is they found a way to do it. Our guys found a way to do it.”
On Bishop Boswell and Felix Okpara responding from their play in Tennessee’s loss at Florida
“Focus. It’s focus. I know Felix, again, I thought his attention to detail was really good. He’s out there having to guard, perimeter guys. And we asked him, he said, no, I want to do it. And he’s gotten so much better there. The ball-screen coverage was better. And obviously Bishop had a tough one in Gainesville, but came back and again, defensively and rebounding. Probably his first ever (double-double). Just proud of the focus, doing exactly what we needed him to do.”
On what overcoming adversity and finding a way to win can do for this Tennessee team going forward
“We’ll see. That’s a great question. And I told him, I said I think we grew up a little bit more tonight. And I will tell you guys, I don’t think at any point in time when we started with this group, did we ever practice for three freshmen (on the court). Thinking they’d be in the minutes that they’re in. But hey’ve earned it. And we’re still going to need all those guys on our team. We still got to do a better job taking care of the basketball. We’ve got to do that. But I told them, I said we won a lot of games here — we haven’t been a great offensive team — being a team that is really connected on the defensive end, a team that really rebounds the ball and gets second-chance points and a team that limits teams to one shot. But we’ve got to decide who we’re going to be and how we’re going do it. And again, I thought our defensive focus, when it needed to be, was pretty good. I mean, they shot 43 threes and that’s hard to guard, it is. And the turnovers, still too many turnovers, but obviously some of those were dead-ball turnovers that didn’t lead to points, which was good.
“And I think Ja’Kobi, he knows I wasn’t happy with his shot at the end of regulation when the score is tied. We’re not looking to do a step-back three. And again, I told him I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt because he played a lot of minutes and turned it over there, some at the end, and that’s fatigue. But that’s just the confidence we have in him. We think he can play through it. But just it really, it wasn’t pretty, but we beat a really, really good basketball team.”
On Tennessee players doing more to take pressure off Ja’Kobi Gillespie, how refreshing that was to see
“Well, it is. And teams are going to try to take him out and that’s fine. I think our other guys can do the job. They’ve just have never been put in that situation. But yeah, Troy’s got a really good feel for it. And we still need Mo (Amaree Abram). We still need them all. So whether it’s Ethan (Burg), whatever. But it goes back, we’ve got to figure out how we can stop turning the ball. We’re just giving up again, think about it, shot wise tonight it wasn’t that big of a difference. But at Florida they had 15 more shots than we did, 30 points off turnovers. Tonight turnovers were kind of even. And tonight we had balance, four or five five guys in double figures.
“And DeWayne Brown has got to play better than he did tonight. He wasn’t ready from the get go. He had a chance to post-up early, do this, and (he didn’t). That’s been the hardest thing with this group, not knowing from day to day, game to game, who’s going to do it. And you know what, he had a good practice yesterday. I wish I could figure it out. I just said on the radio the last time we had to get the ball inbounds, we put JP (Estrella) in and said Nate’s going to walk up there. He got a guy that is 6-5 on him. Lob him the ball. And he threw a bounce pass. I mean, you know, we said lob him the ball. But Nate went and got it, did a great job handling the ball. But those are the things where I still think as a team we gotta listen a lot better. And you can get excited in the moment, but you still have to be where you have your wits about you, where you know what we’re trying to get done. And still too many times we’re not doing that yet.”
On Tennessee using Nate Ament at the four more in that game, if that was because of the matchup with A&M, if Ament wanted the ball more late in the game
“He’s never not wanted the ball. Nate is, I don’t know what people say, people have no idea how hard he works, how good of a kid he is. And how he comes right out of high school game-planned for every game. The physicality is something that, as much as we try to beat on him through the summer with players and doing this and doing that, it’s different when you get in the game. And he’s tried to play through it. He was better tonight, I felt, really fighting to drive, trying to get there, trying to get to his spots. But I mean Nate, he drew 10 fouls. Think about it, 23 points. But you asked why we put him there, basically because our frontline has been so inconsistent. We’re going to get some consistency. We’ve got to get some consistency. And we need those guys on the frontline. Like I said, I don’t know, and again, we love DeWayne Brown, but I don’t know why he didn’t show up at start with. I can’t tell you. We’ve got to get consistency somewhere. And good thing about having a lot of guys, 13 guys you think can play, on a given night that might be somebody else that we can keep searching for. You don’t want to do that, but if you have to, you have to.
“But that was the biggest reason, because when the ball was going inside Jaylen (Carey) early again, we know he plays too slow the ball. We knew they were going to come down there and get it, which we’re fine with that. He’ll kick it out, just kick it out. Because early we had some shots and didn’t make them, but also early I thought it didn’t go inside like it should, and then back out. But it’s hard for guys to turn down shots when they’re open to start the game.”
On Bishop Boswell’s play against Texas A&M
“I don’t think Bishop is any different than most young players. Went through it with every good (player). Jahmai Mashack, any name you want to throw up there. They have success once, they go backward. And then they start thinking they can do more, should do more, then they get themselves jammed up. And when Bishop does what he does, there’s not many guys better that can (do it). He rebounded tonight like a power forward. And he makes those plays. He’s a hard guy to match up against there. The other day (at Florida), obviously, he had the ball in his hand a lot. Instead of just getting us into the offense, he was trying to do way too much. And he threw a couple bad passes tonight. And believe me, as coaches you’re looking at film to try to figure out what we can do to help these guys. With the turnovers or whatever you feel like you’re weak at. And to be honest, and again, I, I love our guys, but it’s hard to help coach decisions when you’re in the heat of the battle.
“And some of the passes that are made, you’re like, what are they thinking? And it’s not even what we practice. And some of it’s being young, some of it really is. I mean, like I said, I mean tonight I think we had three freshmen, a sophomore on the floor. And in these days with the portal, I don’t think anybody thought that would happen. But if that’s who we are, what’s who we will be. But again, I do think that we took a step tonight in terms of some maturity. And showed some fight that we needed to fight against a team that’s really, really well-coached, plays really hard, older guys. And the guys found a way to get it done.”
On what freshman point guard Troy Henderson is able to give Tennessee’s backcourt when he plays 22 minutes and is in the closing lineup
“Practice. Again, same thing with Amari (Evans). Like Amari, I didn’t think Amari Evans was very good tonight. Game where you had to guard the ball and he was getting blown by, wasn’t doing what he needed to do in his rotations. But you know what, he’s a freshman. No different than DeWayne Brown. You start feeling good about yourself, you lose focus and you know, it’s such a fine line in college basketball. Right now, there’s no rhyme or reason (if) you look around college basketball. I think Kansas got beat Saturday at West Virginia. Tonight, they’re blowing out Iowa State. I mean, if you’re not ready to play every single night, you’re gonna get beat. And I don’t care in this league or any other league, that’s what the portal has done. It’s equaled the playing field. Everybody can play, anybody can beat anybody. And we told him (Henderson) the same thing we’ve told all these guys: the guys that aren’t playing, take care of the ball, play defense, get lost in the game that way and then let your offense just come and just do what we practice and you’ll be fine. Why it took him a little bit longer than some, I don’t know. And now the question would be, how does he handle success? Can he come back and decide he is going to — he knows he can do it, but will he do it consistently?”
On Tennessee junior forward Jaylen Carey being able to make clutch free throws at the end of the game, what that will do for his confidence
“Well, again, Jaylen works at it, you know, he does. Again, I think he should be a terrific free-throw shooter because he’s got such great form, and there’s no different, it’s mental. And the thing that we talked about, you know, I showed Nate (Ament) prior to the Florida game, Roger Federer talking about in his career he won almost 80% of his games, matches, but he only won 54% of his points. So he learned how to put a great shot behind him or a bad shot and understand that’s just one point. And I think it helped Nate, and talked to Jaylen about it, it’s just one point. If you miss it, you gotta put it behind you and make the next one. I think he’s getting more confident that way. The ones he missed tonight, he admit there were good misses, anything off the back rim, It’s when they are short, they got no shot. And so from that standpoint, I told him that if you get it to the back rim, we can live with it, and give us a chance to rebound it. And we were able to do that. But he did a good job.”
On if Tennessee’s players were coached to pull back and run the half court offense after they broke Texas A&M’s press
“No, we kept telling them to go. We wanted to get down the floor and attack, we did. I think obviously they were concerned about guys coming from behind. Most people that press, when you beat the press, that’s when the press is really on. It’s not just what happens up there at the point of contact. Good pressing team, they’re always chasing from behind. J.P. (Estrella) did the one thing we told him not to do. Don’t — you’re a big guy — do not dribble the ball. Somebody’s coming from behind and he got it tipped out because he didn’t listen. And so with the right guy, we got numbers, we want to attack and get down and play. I thought we were too tentative early in the game and that’s not what we practiced, if that’s what you’re asking me. We wanted to get down, but we weren’t going to settle for quick threes in transition. If we had numbers, we wanted to try to take advantage of it.”
On Nate Ament’s ability to shoot over defenders, how beneficial that was for Tennessee during overtime
“Well, to be honest with you, the first time we saw him play, we felt that about Nate. What he’s going to have to learn to do is the contact underneath him, and there’s a lot of contact on Nate. I mean, early in the year I felt like people walk up under him and that’s a hard thing. I’ve had talks about that with Mike Eads, who does the best job of anybody training officials, but you let guys walk under you, chuck you a little bit, I told him, I said, ‘if we can do that, we’re gonna be a great defensive team.’ And I think Nate’s been like that all year, where teams have gotten physical and I think people look at him and say that because he’s so weak, he’s just losing the ball. But, you know, a foul is a foul.
“But Nate is learning. He would tell you, he would tell you that the physicality is much different than he ever could imagine. Even as much as we tried to beat him up this summer. But we do think if he gets to his spot that he’s a weapon, like getting the ball up over people.”
