University of Tennessee Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Vols 82, UNC Asheville 78
November 13, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes
(Opening statement)
"Let’s give Asheville credit. We knew they were going to come in and do a good job. They are well coached. Nick (McDevitt) does a great job. We are always going to be concerned with a team that plays high-low and puts the ball inside. Until we can prove we can guard somebody, it is going to happen.
"The good thing about it from our point of view is we were in the game at the end. I felt the last couple of minutes was the first time we really got competitive on the defensive end. That is what we have talked about since the other day. We are just too tentative on the defensive end. When the game was on the line, it could go either way, we made some plays. We had a little bit more pop to it.
"I thought some good things did happen. Look at Jabari. He did some good things for us. He, (Derek) Reese and those guys inside, they just got to help us. We have to keep working and tweek some things on their defense.
"Look at the rebounding. Robert (Hubbs) played 30 minutes and didn’t get a rebound. We have to rebound the ball. That is something that jumps out. KP (Kevin Punter) tonight, no rebounds. We got to be a team that gains rebounds. I don’t think we did a very job getting to the offensive glass. We need to get on the glass. We shot almost 53 percent but didn’t protect the ball particularly well in the second half. This time of year some teams are going to throw some things at you that you haven’t seen. Some of the in-game adjustments we made with them, we did get better there."
(On Hubbs as a defender)
“He can do [that]. First of all, he has to score inside. We are going to be caught in that situation where we took 16 threes tonight, and I only think we should have taken 13 of them. We had a couple of those that were not great looks, and we talked about that. I thought we were a little tentative at times when we were trying to drive the ball and play inside out. Robert can go inside and score, and that is why it is disappointing when you see he doesn't have any rebounds because he can play above the rim. But, he has to make a conscious effort to do that. Again, you have to rebound. I don't think that Devon Baulkman has done what he needs to do yet. You look at it. He did come up with a rebound that gave us a little energy, but we expect more from him with what he is doing, more from a competitive side than anything.”
(On defensive efforts)
“For as much time as we spent on it the last couple days—we were switching ball screens, and we let a guy drive right by us. I would ask what was going on. They would say we are switching. Well, you don't switch unless you are used as a screen. That is the kind of thing we can’t have. Those are breakdowns we can’t have. We have to communicate. We don't have that attitude yet. We don't have an attitude of where we want to be known as a team that is going to be scrappy, break balls loose—the pride you need. We don't have that on the defensive end yet, and it has to be everybody. It isn’t just one guy or two guys. It has to be everybody. We haven’t gotten that yet.”
(On specification of defensive attitude he looks for)
“I don't think there is any question that KP and Armani—they are competitors. We have to have everyone being competitive. I really do think that Jabari McGhee is a competitor. I think he showed that tonight. But, we have to have everyone. It has to come on the defensive end. We have to develop that. You look at Derek Reese. We want him to play defense and rebound. No offensive rebounds, even though he had eight. I have said before, I think he can get 10 rebounds per night if he wanted to, but he has to get some on the offensive end. We can’t be a one-and-done offensive team. We did a little better job in the second half, but not what we have to do from start to finish.
(On Jabari McGhee giving team a spark)
“He did. The biggest play of the game was when they intentionally fouled him and made those two free throws. I told him, ‘That was the play of the game.’ The fact that he put so much time changing his shot, he walked up there and was confident. He knocked them down. I think you guys know we are going to be in a lot of close games all year. Plays that you can’t give up—one time, KP had a loose ball in the backcourt, let it get away from him and they laid it in. He is a better free throw shooter than he is shooting right now. We have to be really good in some areas. Overall, 69 percent as a team, we have to be higher than that. KP was 8-for-12. You can expect a little bit from those guys. In certain areas, we have to be better. When you look at the turnovers, we did a good job of taking care of that early. In the second half, we had some guys that were just too careless with the ball. They drove into those gaps, changed to a 1-3-1 (zone), and we just made some careless passes.”
(On locker room temperature)
“It [cooled down]. I noticed that they had a couple guys cramp, too. KP, I can understand him. He played a lot of minutes. What did he end up playing tonight? 35 (minutes). We did a better job tonight when Armani Moore and KP weren't in the game. We did a better job of that than we did the other night as a group. I do like Shembari Phillips. I think he will compete, too, but he just has to understand that he an Admiral—they still think shoot first. Those guys can help us if they buy into a role, and they haven’t done that yet. You kind of expect it with young guys. Detrick Mostella, he turned his ankle, and we didn't know how much we could get out of him. When he was hurt, he took a tough three. You guys know we want to shoot it, but we have to get good ones. We just have to do a better job rebounding the ball and deciding we are going to be a little more scrappy and intense on the defensive end.”
(On playing a close game before a quick turnaround at Georgia Tech)
“What I think is good about it is that Georgia Tech is big and pride themselves on rebounding. That’s what they do. I think they led the [ACC] in rebounding last year and play with traditional big guys. They will work hard at trying to slow us down and go about it a different way. The team that plays the hardest the longest normally wins. I have a lot for respect for Asheville. They played hard and got comfortable. There is no doubt in their minds they thought they could win that game. They thought that from the very beginning. Until we get a reputation, people have to think that when you have the ball, you better be good with it because you are only going to get one shot at it. You can’t give up 14 offensive rebounds. It has to be done by committee. You can’t have two starters with no rebounds and another one with two offensive rebounds. Three of our starters didn't get a defensive rebound. That’s a problem.”
(On Armani Moore or Kevin Punter bringing the ball up)
“Because Armani’s a good passer, we really wanted to get Kevin coming in from the wing - trying to drive the gap, which he did. We wanted to get him to do that as opposed to up front. Kevin’s still learning how to play the point. Armani can play it. He can play anywhere on the floor. He sees it. He’s strong with it. One thing he’s going to do is he’s going to attack the belly of that lane.
“Up there, you’ve got to get some penetration. Kevin was looking to pass it sideways. Against the 1-3-1, you’ve got to go right at it. We really went more of an open set, and Armani did a good job, then [Kevin] had a chance for a three point play.”
(On adjusting the lineup after Robert Hubbs’ injury)
“Whoever we’ve got, we’ve got to go. With that lineup when we had the ball out, with the rule, they went over and checked to see if it was our ball. We were talking about two different situations there. If they have the ball, we were going to go to a hot situation, try to switch everything.
“It was our ball when the referee came over. We should’ve subbed and got a guard in, but it worked out. Jabari [McGhee] stepped and made those [free throws]. We knew they were going to have to foul, and we [subbed] the next time down the floor.
“I told our guys in the locker room, when we had to get down [the court], at least put in a little more effort and energy. You can’t play back on your heels. It’s a mentality. I don’t know if it’s an effort thing, I think it’s a mentality. That’s part of what we’re trying to get started here. We’ve got to develop a mentality that we’re going to guard people.
“We had 42 points in the paint. They had 40. You wouldn’t think that watching that game. I felt like they owned anything they wanted around the rim. What we don’t want to give up is the 10-12 points off turnovers. They had 17 second chance points to our nine. We shot almost 53% [from the field], but you can’t give up 17 second chance points. We had a loose ball taken away in the backcourt. Right there, that’s a big part of the game.”
(On the three new signees)
“First of all, I’m really proud of our program. I’m proud of the assistants. I’m proud of our players. I can’t tell you how proud I am of the University of Tennessee. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I can’t tell you how many people went totally out of their way, went above and beyond to make sure [the official visits] were everything we wanted and more. The three guys we got were three guys we targeted from day one. Once we got through the July recruiting period, we knew.
“I’ve always had great respect for the coaching staff’s evaluation that we wanted. We got guys that we wanted. It was a great effort. The support people around here, the atmosphere, the football game, all the little things that we do to really try to put it out there and show people what we have here at the University of Tennessee. We’re really excited about this class. There’s a lot of expectations that we expect from them coming in.”
Tennessee guard Kevin Punter
(On what swung the game during the 2nd half)
"We have to credit those guys. They came out and executed. We got caught sleeping on defense a few times, which allowed those guys to go on a run."
(On attacking more)
"The gap opened up a little bit. I'm always just trying to stay in attack mode. It opened up, and I just went."
(On offensive efficiency)
"Coach wanted us to switch it up. Coach always preaches to get the ball in the inside, to get it in to play inside-out, and that is what we did."
(On Jabari McGhee giving good minutes)
"Definitely, he came in and brought the energy. That's what we needed, and he knocked down those two big free throws for us."
(On the improvement of his shooting and confidence)
"Definitely, I've been working on that all summer. Ever since Coach took the job. I shoot every day, workout everyday. In moments like this, I'm supposed to make shots."
(On the challenge of changing his shot over the summer)
"At first I didn't want to do it, but I buckled down and decided to give it a try, and it ended up working out."
Tennessee forward Armani Moore
(On getting backup from Robert Hubbs III)
“That’s going to be the key for our team now. It’s good to have two players like me and KP, but at the same time -- like Coach said -- we’re going to need more than just two people. We are a team. We need everybody to play their role and be able to step up to the plate because, like tonight, I was in foul trouble, wasn’t playing as good, so we have to have somebody else to kind of step up and I feel like tonight Hubbs was that guy.”
(On the importance of winning this game)
“By having such a young and inexperienced team I feel like any game we win is a good feeling, but at the same time it just goes to show that this team -- they’re a very good team -- but we've got to really pay attention to detail because on any given night a team is going to come in here and try to go at our heads. So we’ve got to be ready because sooner or later we’ll be looking at it and it will be an SEC game and we can’t afford to lose too many games.”
(On mistakes made)
“We’ve got to really use all of our skill level and our advantages. Our advantages are to play fast and make sure we rebound as a gang and I feel like once we can get that down we’ll be pretty good.”
(On lessons learned from tonight’s game)
“I figured out tonight that it’s not necessarily about me, you know, it’s about a team. If I’m not scoring as good tonight then what can I do? I have to pass the ball, I have to defend, and I have to rebound. I figured that out kind of late but I was able to execute in the long run.”
(On Coach Barnes removing him from the game)
“As a player you know anytime you get a foul you feel like you’re smart enough to maintain and stay on the floor. But I trust a guy like Coach Barnes because obviously he knows what he’s doing so it wasn’t necessarily a time where I was pressuring him like, 'Coach I’m good. Put me back in the game.' I felt like whenever he was ready he was going to put me back in. I just knew once I got in I had to handle my business.”
Tennessee forward Jabari McGhee
(On if it’s rewarding winning a close game)
“It wasn’t the prettiest, but a win is a win. We just have to go with it and get ready for Georgia Tech.”
(On Robert Hubbs III's big block)
“Hubbs is great around the rim. He makes almost everything around the rim. He can get up a lot higher than most defenders. Like you saw on the block, he had to get up pretty high to go get it. It shows he’s a big time player.”
(On making both free throws at the end of the game)
“It’s what I worked for -- if you’re going to foul me -- the opportunity show that [I] can knock-down free throws.”
(On how Coach Barnes’ calling the free throws the “Play of the Game”)
“I was just trying to help my team get the win, that’s all.”
UNC Asheville head coach Nick McDevitt
(On coming back from a 10 point deficit in the second half)
“[We're] obviously disappointed in the outcome, but I’m proud of our guys' effort. We had some guys that played a lot of minutes out there and played hard. And to come out of it on the short end of it is a little disappointing like I said, but it was very encouraging the fight we had from our team. I thought we grew up tonight. You know, we had a shot at the end there at the end of the [four-minute media timeout] and that’s what you come here for is to give yourself a chance to win there in crunch time. We made some big plays, knocked some free throws down the stretch to kind of keep us at bay, and like I said, really proud of our effort to come back from a 10-point deficit in the second half. Immature teams or young teams kind of go away, and I was really proud of what we did out there.”
(On Tennessee's late-game block from Robert Hubbs III)
“Well I don’t know. I would have like to seen how big of a play it would have been because you never know how the other team handles being down. You know for the most part of the game they were ahead or we weren’t in that plus-five, plus-seven, plus-10 position. You know, perhaps a layup or and and-one right there you might take a two possession lead. You’re up four or five points and you’re just ahead in the game and you never know how the other team is going to handle it."
(What to expect from Will Weeks this season)
“You know, we’ve always known what kind of player Will is, and the kind of talent that he is. He’s got that kind of ability. Couple of years ago he was 10 and nine in the opener against Kentucky before he got hurt and that injury really set him back. He redshirted the rest of the year and the following season he only played the last eight or nine games in the year. He missed about a year and a half. He’s finally getting his legs back from under him after that knee injury and lost about 25 pounds from the lift of last year. He’s from 245 to about 220, and when he’s healthy and feels good he can put up performances like that."
