Everything Rick Barnes Said After Tennessee's First SEC Win of the Season

Tennessee basketball head coach Rick Barnes met with the media after Tennessee's 66-60 overtime win against Ole Miss. Everything he said after the win in which the Vols never led in regulation is below.

On why they struggled offensively...

“Well, I think Kermit Davis is one of the best coaches in the country and he does a great job, he always has, but I mean we started the game with three turnovers that they had nothing to do with. And when you do that, when your starters are in the game and they don’t give it to you right off the bat, you can almost feel the weight starting to mount on other guys and I thought that we got hesitant. And they didn’t do one thing today different than we had talked about for a couple days in terms of switching some defenses—a 1-3-1, man 2-3, but we have guys that got hesitant. When you get hesitant, you’re going to have a hard time shooting the basketball and guys just dribbling to dribble, with no purpose. Then obviously they were content to let us throw the ball inside, but we weren’t getting anything out of it. I thought Uros (Plavsic) and Olivier (Nkamhoua), both of those guys have really improved. I was probably as proud of Olivier as any player tonight, I mean there were a lot of guys I could talk about, the way those five guys finished. But Olivier, he’s never been in this situation, this is the first time he’s been in a game where we put him out there when we were behind and the way he responded, his body language, and the way he was talking to the guys in the huddle was terrific. We weren’t very good, but you know I think good teams win games like that when they’re not playing good basketball. And again, I don’t want to take anything away from Ole Miss because they haven’t played since December 21 and I have the utmost respect for Kermit and his staff, but we found a way. They had 27 turnovers, and we had 19, and I’m sure they had something to do with some of them, but I can tell you a lot of it we just threw the ball away—where we were trying to make more difficult passes than we had to. I mean, really some of them borderline on being ridiculous. I mean we talk about all the time—the simple A to B pass. We knew we would be in a long possession game; we knew they were going to play deep into the clock, and we knew that would happen. So, that means you’re playing defense for a long time. Can you say that affects you on the offensive end? It shouldn’t, we can rely on our depth the way that we want to. We asked (Jahmai Mashack) to go into the game and we said, ‘You have to change the game by getting some offensive rebounds.’ And he got three of them. Uros is trying to do what we needed him to do. And again, I’m not taking anything away from Ole Miss, but I just know a lot of those turnovers we put it on ourselves.”

On defensive successes…

“Well, defensively, you know the numbers are there. It tells the story there. And another thing, when you’re behind, you’re struggling like that, I mean the other team feels it too. I mean, they feel the hesitancy, they’re starting to feel good about themselves. Then you maybe lose it just a little bit on the defensive end because you know you start thinking about the offensive side of it, but for our guys to stay locked in defensively the way they did was really good. And we’ve talked about it, we’ll play defense and rebound regardless of if we have a bad night, and we had an awful night offensively. We still can find a way to win a game, and that showed tonight. But you know, rebounding and our defense is what won the game. Certainly, our offense at the end, we kept telling guys, ‘You have to shoot the ball.’ And finally, Santi got some looks, like the one he had in transition early where he made a tough pass to (John Fulkerson) who ran over somebody, and he should’ve shot it. I mean, he’s being guarded so hard that when he gets a look, I don’t care when it is, he has to shoot it because he’s that good a shooter. I said to Jon Sundvold tonight before when we were talking about the game, I said, ‘This is the best league in the country, every night you have to go into it like it’s going to be a possession game.’ And that’s what I think. I mean, I’ve got so much respect for, again, Kermit, his staff, this league, it’s never going to be easy. And if it is, it’s a rarity.”

On Santiago Vescovi’s performance…

“The coaches kept asking me, ‘Do you think we need to give Santiago (Vescovi) a blow?’ And I said, ‘He’ll make that call.’ I kept asking him, and I said, ‘Are you good?’ And he said, ‘I’m good.’ Santiago (Vescovi) is in elite shape. People are not going to give him anything easy. They’re going to make him work. He plays so much bigger than his size. I don’t know if people realize all the little things that he does. (Josiah-Jordan James) does the same thing. They’re locked in. They can really help other guys through what they’re doing. We had too many guys back down when they had shots because it wasn’t going in. We said, ‘One of you guys is going to have to step up tonight and shoot the ball. Somebody’s going to have to do it.’ Olivier (Nkamhoua) went into the game and made that little jump shot. Zakai (Zeigler) got downhill—he made that pass through the legs. It was a phenomenal pass. Even the one he threw around the shoulder where I think Olivier (Nkamhoua) wasn’t quite sure of it. (Zakai) was getting the ball downhill where we wanted it. It was just a really tough, hard and not-pretty game. It was a great win for us with the way it played out.”

On what leads to long stretches of inconsistent offense…

“You can’t have guys that are going to back down when they’re not making shots. You got to take your shots. I do think we’re a physically tough team. We’ve got to get tougher mentally. Mental toughness is— when things aren’t going your way—you still believe in your training. You believe in what we do. When you’re open, you’ve got to take shots. For instance—our inside game… those guys should have all the room in the world, because (defenders) are not going to leave Santiago (Vescovi). You look at our numbers, and they don’t look very good, but people have seen enough where they know those guys will shoot it. We had to shoot it, but we have to shoot it like we know we can make it—not hoping that it’s going in. We’ve just got to shoot it. At the rim, we missed two layups where we should just go in and try to score it. If they block it, they block it. You can’t go in and do all this (ball fake) stuff and not get anything out of it. If they block it, they make a great play, you pat them on the butt and say, ‘Great play.’ We’ve got to convert some of those when we get out. We turned them over 27 times. We had 17 steals. We should be getting more out of that. But, when guys are backing down from their shots, it’s tough. When you don’t take the shots you need to take, you go looking for trouble because you’re hesitant. We ended up with 19 turnovers.”

On getting other players to have the same mentality as Santiago Vescovi…

“Two guys that play like they do every day (in practice) are Santiago (Vescovi) and Zakai (Zeigler). They’re the two guys that are the most consistent guys on our team. They’re in elite shape. They bring it every day. (Opposing teams are) going to guard Santiago (Vescovi). He’s got to work. You take that and the fact that he played 41 minutes—and you watch him on the defensive end—it’s really impressive. He is guarded on the defensive end. At the end of the game, he got in a rhythm. At the end, Santiago (Vescovi) did a great job in the last part of regulation and overtime. I’ve said it… we’ve got to get everybody doing what we know they can do. Confidence shouldn’t be a problem. When you start the game the way we did, with key guys not getting it done the way you want them to, that weight starts to mount on other people. We’ve got to keep searching to find the right lineup to start. We’ll do that. You’re going to have some games like this. You don’t want to have them, but you will. If you can win them, it’s a great thing.”

On what impacted Kennedy Chandler’s performance…

“I think you’ve got to give Ole Miss credit. I think you have to do that. But, you saw when he got aggressive and wanted to get to the rim, he did. He asked me and said, ‘What should I have done in that last possession of (regulation)?’ And I said, ‘Go make them foul you. Put pressure on them.’ Zakai (Zeigler) gets the ball where he wants it. Kennedy (Chandler) has got to do that. It’s in his game. He’s got to be able to do that, because he’s got that kind of speed. He’s got the ability to make layups at the rim when he gets there. He’s learning that this game is a lot harder than he probably thought it was going to be. He’s got to believe in it. People back off of him a little bit. We want him to raise up when he’s got that. We’ve got to be tough at the end of the game, especially with the scoring talent. We’ve got to go. We don’t have to settle right there.”

On if John Fulkerson and Kennedy Chandler missing last week’s game at Alabama impacted them in Wednesday’s win…

“I don’t know. I will tell you what it has done. It has given us confidence that Olivier (Nkamhoua) and that small lineup can go. Uros (Plavsic) is coming. Those guys went to work through that. They’re going to have to do it. I can’t tell you that. They didn’t practice like it. Neither one of them practiced like the way they played today. I don’t know if I could put that on the COVID. John’s in there. He’s in the league now. People have game planned for him. They are not going to let him ball and do all that stuff. They are going to stay down and he is going to have to shoot the ball. We told him he needed to play quicker. At the start of the first half, he had a chance to come right across the lane and catch it for a layup. He was slow getting there. Then, he could have gotten it up quickly. He is going to have to realize that people want to get him in a physical game. They want to put their bodies on him. He is going to have to be more elusive and understand what’s going on around him.”

On Olivier Nkamhoua’s play of late…

“The best thing was that he was locked into this game. That’s the best thing he did. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him like this. He was talking more than he’s ever talked in his life. During the game at the end, when he just kept talking. It may have been as much as anybody. You could imagine guys like Santi and Josiah, they’re trying to catch their breath. When Olivier came in, he made that jumper and that was big. At the end of the game, he had that foul that he should not have had. I asked him, ‘What were you thinking right there?’ He said, ‘I thought it was there.’ I said, ‘You have to be 100 percent. We can’t stop the clock when we have a lead right here.’ I thought his presence, his body language and his mindset were great. Again, he’s never been in that situation. Tonight’s the first time he’s really been there. Tonight, when we were trailing, he had to help us get back in the game and then he helped us win the game. I told him, ‘I’m really proud of you.’ Hopefully, this is going to be a game changer for him that he can continue to build on. A lot of guys are in new roles this year, especially with games like this. Uros is getting more minutes because he’s starting to figure out more what we need him to do. Those couple of buckets he made were really big. There are some good things. We just need everybody, not two or three of them. We need everybody doing it.”

On Santiago Vescovi’s defensive improvement from last season and how that’s impacting the team…

“Santi, again, I will tell you: this is the longest he’s been here. His first year, he walked in here in January. In the following year, was the COVID year. He played with his national team back home and then I think he got here at the end of July. He came back in tremendous shape. He is in elite shape. He plays hard. He’s smart. That’s why we kept telling him. I realize when I tell him, ‘You have to shoot the ball,’ he’s got to work for everything he gets because people are really locked into him. We were trying to get a ball screen action going with him on one side by himself and believe it or not, guards kept going the wrong way because they were not leaving him. They were absolutely not going to leave him. That takes away that tag on that side. We got a little bit in the pick and roll. We got some out of it, but we should have gotten more than we did because of the fact that he is almost letting us play four-on-four on offense.”

On Zakai Zeigler’s performance and his late-game minutes…

“He has surprised us all. He came in here a week late and it is just amazing what he’s been able to do, understanding things. I remember when we were getting ready to play Villanova and I said to him after practice, ‘I’m not sure you’re going to be able to play in this game.’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ He’s got that deep voice. I said, ‘Well, these guys like to back guards down and jump over them.’ He said, ‘Coach, nobody is going to back me down.’ Then against Texas Tech, as we talked about switching in that game, both he and Kennedy proved that they can guard post guys if they have to. It’s in his DNA. I’ve told you guys before during the recruiting process, when I would call him, I could hear he was on the subway or the train going somewhere. He’s the first guy in years that when I ask if he was playing indoors or outdoors that day, he would say, ‘I’m outdoors tonight.’ I came in here Sunday on a day off and he was in here shooting. He was in here early. He’s like Santi. He plays all day. I think he has a short memory. If he turns it over, he’ll say, ‘I’ll get it back. I know. I get it.’ He’s learning. Think about it, he’s never been in the environment he’s been in this year and I’d say he has responded as well as anybody that we have. He believes in himself. He believes in what he does to get ready. It’s in his DNA.”

To watch Barnes' entire post-game media availability, see the video at the top of the article.

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