University of Tennessee Athletics
Vol Hoops Media Monday
February 12, 2018 | Men's Basketball
Rick Barnes Transcript
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On what caused Tennessee's defensive struggles against Alabama:
"From the very first possession, we were just ball watching. We pretty much got what we deserved. It took us 10 minutes into that game before we even got close to being the defensive team we've been all year, and then our offense didn't help us at all because of guys just breaking out on their own thinking they had to make something happen quickly. Then the second half just fell apart, and I sat those guys down because those minutes are valuable and if guys aren't going to utilize and try to compete, I'm going to let guys in that want to compete, and I thought that group that played pretty much the last part of the game deserved to play. Some guys wanted to go back in, but I said, 'you had your chance and you weren't ready'. But again, we got what we deserved. We had guys not following the scouting report. We didn't deserve to win."
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On if he thinks the team will respond well after the loss:
"We'll see today, with the process we go through, we watched tape yesterday and worked on our bodies a little bit, but we'll get into practice and see how we respond."
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On what watching tape of the game revealed:
"It revealed that guys didn't follow the scouting report. Early in the game we weren't doing what we were supposed to be doing with the scouting report defensively. Offensively, guys were open and we just didn't pass the ball. The very first play of the game, Kyle Alexander was just lost for no reason. During the game, we thought he may have stepped up and helped, but he didn't. He played probably as poor of a game since he's been here, all the way back to his freshman year. And we know he had some tough ones then. But we just weren't locked in at all, and the tape revealed that. We ask what we could have done in this situation and why we didn't do it, you ask that question and they don't have the answer, but obviously the answer is whether it's a false sense of confidence or whether we have other things on our minds, I don't know, but the fact is we didn't do anything that we talked about."
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On if the team is distracted by outside noise:
"I'm sure they hear it, and I think it's a big problem on their part. I've said it before, you don't have to read newspapers and listen to people on social media and all that to pretty much see what's happening after every game. I think it's a big mistake because the best teams don't even think about that during the year. Everybody wants to know why I don't compliment players, it's for a reason, because I think they want to be complimented and that's why they search out and look for people telling them they played well. We have a team full of guys that I can tell you, when they have big games, it's almost a pattern, they come back and don't play as well. Once you have a big game, that game is over, but the question is can you do it again and do it better for the next one. And that's where we are as a team right now. You can have success, but even when you've had success, we have to get better, and we didn't get better on Saturday. And I'm not so sure we got any better in practice on Friday. So it's not that complicated, it really isn't. You just have to do your job every day. And there's not a team in this league that can't do that to us, and there isn't a team in the league that we can't beat. And I would say that for the top teams in the country, too. Villanova, if they're not ready to play, they're going to get beat, night in and night out. And we don't have a guy that night in and night out of we're not locked in that can carry us. We don't have that."
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On mood of the team during bus trip back to Knoxville:
"You ever been on a bus for four hours? I don't care if you win or lose, it's not a good time. But it could've been worse. I think Mississippi State had to bus back, too. The plane got iced in up in Missouri, they were supposed to drop Mississippi State off, come back and pick us up. We had some options, we could've waited for another plane to get in, maybe get us back by 1 or 2 in the morning, possibly not. We could've stayed overnight, get back late, and we just chose to get on a bus. They had a bus meet us halfway from Knoxville because the driver from Birmingham couldn't drive that long. It's no different than when we bus going anywhere. It's not like we walk up and down the aisles checking on each other. We're just watching tape, there's a TV on, most everybody has their headphones on doing their own deal. It was a situation that I think Saturday, a lot of teams had to deal with some weather problems."
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On whether there were any warning signs of team's performance before Alabama game:
"We got beat. We didn't play well. Plain and simple. They might have played as well as they've played all year. I mean, it happens. I hate it, you hate it to happen, but do you see yourself coming into a game getting beat by 28-30 points? No, you don't. We got beat. It's over and done with. We got another game on Tuesday and we need to get to it."
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On how to use Saturday's loss as motivation for the rest of the season:
"There's a lot of ways you can look at it. Some people say you forget it, move on. I don't think you ever forget it. I think you remember it. You remember it, because if you don't remember it, it's doomed to repeat itself. And so you go in and you just analyze it. Put the tape in, we've looked at it a number of different ways, and I make the decision to show them what I think they can best learn from. I don't care what game it is, we show them every game, if we do what we're supposed to do, we got a chance to win, and if they don't do those things, you can lose, and that's exactly what we showed. We did not follow our scouting report, we did not compete, we were not locked in mentally. We didn't do anything, and that's how we got the result we got. Again, it's not that hard. It really isn't. I know how hard we've had to play to win games this year. We've had to play really, really hard. We did not play really, really hard and we got beat. You show them that, and how do you show them that? When there's a dribble exchange and you're supposed to switch, we don't. When there's a ball screen situation, we're supposed to do this, we don't. When there's a guy 25-feet out from the basket and you don't help your teammate. That's not what we do. So, you show them all the things we were supposed to do that we didn't do, and it's really that simple."
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On if he wants to make changes for the team this far into season:
"I hope you're never who you are. I keep saying we have to get better. We've got a lot of respect for South Carolina obviously, and we know they're going to fight hard. They've added some things since we played them, we've added a couple things. We might add some things today, they might add some things today. It's still going out and playing the game hard, the way it should be played and competing. We know they're going to do that. I know they've had some struggles offensively too, but they went in to Florida and won a big game when they were playing really well. Everybody is capable in this league to win at any time, and we know that. If not, we better know it by now. We certainly should know it after Saturday."
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On what he's seen from freshman forward Zach Kent this season:
"He's gotten better. He had some issues early in the year that like any freshman, you work through. But he's getting better and we think he's got a great future."
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On if he envisions players like Yves Pons and Jalen Johnson being important the rest of the season:
"No doubt. I still don't think Jalen is 100-percent, and we all just admire him for what he's had to fight through with the injury that he had. And Yves too, it was a big adjustment for him, but there's no doubt from the coaching staff and their teammates too, we all have confidence in those guys. And if we have guys that aren't playing well – and our guard play was not good on Saturday, maybe the poorest it's been all year – we'll make more adjustments if we have to. Because we're going to get better. Someway, somehow, we're going to get better."
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On how to respond as a coach after a bad performance:
"It was definitely a bad day. And you don't overreact to anything other than what you have to react to, and that's the things that we didn't do fundamentally. The things that we didn't execute. But you respond to it. It's our job as coaches to point out what we didn't do, which is quite obvious when we watch the tape a second time. And I think they would all tell you, it's really hard to watch a game like that when you know you played that poorly. But the fact is, you know what, it's not about reacting, it's about coaching. You just try to get back to the fundamental things that win basketball games."
On if Saturday showed how much Tennessee needs Kyle Alexander to play well:
"Not just him, we've won games without Kyle. We were bad all around. Even the guys who went in, those guys could have played harder. Nobody did anything. So it's not a matter of just Kyle. Because we've won games without Kyle, we've won games without Grant, we've won games without all of them. But collectively, we weren't good. And when you're not good, you're going to get beat pretty badly, and we did."
