University of Tennessee Athletics
Rick Barnes Press Conference
November 07, 2016 | Men's Basketball
Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes answered questions Monday morning as the Volunteers prepare to open the season Friday against Chattanooga at Thompson-Boling Arena. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. ET, and the game will be streamed live on SEC Network+ and the WatchESPN app.
Barnes appeared at his press conference wearing an orange shooting shirt and the orange and white candy-striped warmup pants that were made popular by Tennessee teams during the tenure of legendary head coach Ray Mears in the 1960s and 1970s. This year's Vols are reviving that pregame tradition, and the new Nike pants will make their debut Friday.
(Opening Statement)
"I thought we played hard in the exhibition (vs. Slippery Rock Thursday). I didn't think we had great execution, looking back at it. I do think that early in the year, with a young group of guys, it is really important that you get them to understand how hard they have to play on every play and every possession. In terms of the execution, our help defense wasn't very good. We weren't very good with ball-screen defense, either. We didn't rebound well, and that's something that we talked about going in. We knew that (Slippery Rock) would do that. That's what they have been doing the past couple years at Slippery Rock. The effort was good. I do think that. We tried to clean up some of those things the last couple days getting ready for Chattanooga, who everyone knows they return four out of five starters from a year ago. They won the (Southern Conference) regular-season championship. They won the conference (tournament) championship and were an NCAA Tournament team. Matt McCall has done a terrific job at his time there. I'm not sure that there's any tougher opener that we've had in a long time. It's a really tough opener for us with their experience. I have to believe that we're one of the youngest teams in the NCAA, but that's okay. They are an experienced group of guys that know what their trying to get done within their system."
(On Chattanooga)
"Any team that wins almost thirty games is a good team. And they have guys coming back. The thing we talk about is every game is an important game, and my line is if you don't think it is big tonight, just wait until March. They are all big come March. If you work as hard as I think we work... you have to be ready every night. So I want to make sure that we don't take any games for granted. I think you have to get better every time you go out and play, and it doesn't sit well with me when guys aren't ready to play, no matter who we are playing. I will let them know that as hard as we work, year round, we cannot waste one opportunity to go out and play with passion and enthusiasm."
(On the return of the orange and white candy-striped warmup pants)
"Actually we wanted to do this a year ago, but it was too late in the making to get it done. I love tradition, I'm a big fan of tradition and, obviously, I remember those days--the Ernie and Bernie days--and those times. I just think it's great to pay tribute to your past. Hopefully we can bring back some of those days. Those were great days for the people here and the Volunteer fanbase and I hope we can get it back to where we play at that level."
(On the changing the starting lineup)
"I think that what we try to do here early is try to put some guys out there that have a little more experience. But I think that it can change as the season goes on. It will take care of itself. I'm not so concerned about who starts as much as I am concerned about who needs to finish it. I just want guys to stay on edge. I want them to make sure that they understand that every possession counts. They have to play every possession. I want to see the habits that we talk about that go into winning developed. Whether that is on the defensive end where we need to finish possessions with rebounding or offensively fighting for their space on the court. It will all work out in the end, because the guys that understand it and get there quicker will be the ones that play the most, whether they start or come off the bench."
(On how the difficulty of Tennessee's schedule)
"I think you have to play a tough schedule. We are playing a tough schedule. We are starting out hard. I think if you want to be good, you have to look forward to being in big games--tough games. It's nice to have some games where you can win and play a lot of people, but the fact is that to get where you want to go, it has to be a built-in mindset that you're going to be in tough games all the time. How do we win those games? You can't prepare for them unless you're in them. You can do all the special situations that you want to do in practice, you can try to bring it up, but there are so many things that can happen. With this young group, we know we're building something. This is a group that we think has a chance to do some special things. The more we can put them in the fire right now, it is going to come back and help us somewhere down the line. I'm not worried about people that say that we can get burnt too bad. I don't believe that. I believe that if you're a competitor, it's not hard to get back up off the mat after you get beat. It's part of what we do. There's going to be a winner and loser in every game. We want to win more than we lose, obviously, but you have to build that attitude that when things don't turn out the way you want them to turn out, you have to get back up. You're going to have to do that in the course of the game. I think it's the ebbs and flows of the game of basketball. Momentum is a huge thing, but putting guys in situations where they don't flinch and they keep playing is something you have to learn through playing a hard schedule."
(On freshman forward Grant Williams)
"He has the potential, but what we need him to do is have one mindset. He has to rebound the ball, and we have to have a presence on the glass. We need all of our post guys (hitting the glass)--and we have five guys who we consider post guys. We need to know that when the ball goes up, we will have a presence on the glass. We need that from him more than anything. Kyle Alexander and John Fulkerson and Lew Evans need to rebound, and we need to have that presence out of our post players."
