CHICAGO — Tennessee basketball’s 2025-26 season came to a close Sunday afternoon as Michigan annihilated the Vols 95-62 in the Midwest Regional final. The Vols held steady early before Michigan used a 21-0 run to take control of the game and never looked back.
Following the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes discussed the Vols’ offensive struggles, his future at Tennessee and much more. Here’s everything Barnes said.
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Opening statement
“Congratulations to Michigan. They played obviously an outstanding basketball game. We’re obviously disappointed. We think that we’re better than what we showed today. The game was kind of where we had it in the first eight to ten minutes, and we picked up five quick fouls and it got away from us. Give them credit.
But just so proud of our guys. They’ve had a phenomenal year. Obviously when you get to this point and you don’t move on, it’s extremely disappointing, especially when you know you weren’t at your best and you need to be at your best at this time.
But proud of these two guys here and Grant. Grant was a guy we brought back to help us maintain our culture with the locker room. And Felix has been amazing. And I thought Ja’Kobi in a year just endeared himself to Vol Nation, and he was fearless today.
But just unbelievably proud of this team. Really, we’ve gone through a lot. They’ve stuck together to get us to this point. And there’s probably, what, 50 some teams that would like to be here today where we are even after a loss. So I’m proud of their effort.
We want more. There’s no doubt we want more. We want to break through this thing. But you’ve got to get here first. Just so proud of the effort these guys gave it this year.”
On if he’s 100% committed to being back at Tennessee next season
“Yeah, I am.”
On if there’s anything they could have done to better stopped Michigan
“Yeah, you know what, offensively we needed to make some shots. I also thought our post guys, I would have liked to see them touch it a little bit more at the start of the game. We know they’re an outstanding transition team. And those corner threes, they’re really good at that.
You’ve got to make some shots, too. Again, the first eight to ten minutes was like 16-16, that’s how we wanted it. And right there, those next couple minutes were foul trouble, get to the free-throw line. Obviously shot a lot more free throws than we did. But we’ve got to score. At some point in time you’ve got to score the ball, too.
But those misses led to that transition game where they were able to get out, and give them credit, they were making their shots.”
On what Tennessee needs to do to get over the Final Four hump, if there’s luck involved
“Yeah, there’s luck in everything you do, but you get to this point — you look at their guys today, they had a lot of guys that played really good basketball, had good days. It’s hard to have a day where maybe one or two guys are off and get there. At this time of year, your players have to play and step up.
First of all, they’re a very, very talented team. They really are. You look at the teams that are going to the next round, so far they’re all very talented teams. But we’re a talented team, and some teams have a little more room for error than others.
But we’ve seen enough in this game. There’s a lot of different ways to get there. But if you want to break through, you’ve got to get here first. You’ve got to put yourself in position to do that. We’ve been able to get here three years in a row, and it’ll be hard to get back to winning games just in the tournament. That first game of the tournament in the hardest one. But our goal would be to keep getting back and kicking and hopefully we can knock the door down.”
On if there should have been offensive goal tending called on Yaxel Lendeborg’s and-one in transition
“It was definitely goal tending. The rule says the ball has got to go through the net. The ball did not go through the net.”
On what they were told when he tried to review it
“Well, they told me I couldn’t. The ball has to go through the net before it’s deemed a successful field goal, and it wasn’t through, and the rim was held on. I asked. They said, I can’t review it. Then I even asked a couple guys did they understand the ball had to go through the net, and I’m not sure they did. But the ball has to go through the net to be a successful goal.”
On what it’s going to take to close the gap on the one-seeds they have lost to the last three years
“Well, we’re going to have to shoot the ball better. There’s no doubt. We’ve got to shoot the ball better. We’re so inconsistent doing that. We still have to be better finishing around the rim. You’ve watched us all year and we missed too many of those shots. Obviously our defense got us here. It really did. It’s no question. We’ve had games where we’ve struggled to score, but you’re playing against an outstanding team today that was scoring. But just simply, we all have to get better. We all have to keep working at it.
We certainly know what it takes to get here, now we’ve got to figure out getting through to the next level, and it’s on this day, you’ve got to really be at your best.”
On if shot selection was an issue
“Well, we knew all year that everybody puts a big target on Ja’Kobi and we knew that — again, we wanted the ball inside. It’s really harder for him. We could get into ball screens. It’s harder for him sometimes because he’s often got double-team and he’s got to get rid of it and that’s a great time to put it in.
Now, we had open looks. We had some open shots that didn’t go down, and that’s where they were able to get out and capitalize.
I thought that a little bit because we weren’t making shots — not that we quit because we would never quit — but it put us back on a heels a little bit where we had to continue to guard. Because again, that’s what’s got us through this tournament. But our missed shots led to a bunch of points for them.”
