Tennessee 65 Cincinnati 56 Dec. 12, 2020 | Thompson-Boling Arena Tennessee Head Coach Rick Barnes
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Tennessee 65 Cincinnati 56 Dec. 12, 2020 | Thompson-Boling Arena Tennessee Head Coach Rick Barnes On both the team’s rebounding and Fulkerson’s performance: “We have a different team in terms of we do think that we have multiple guys that can drive the ball, and we haven’t had a lot of that in the past couple of years. We’ve played two teams now, for foul trouble reasons, that have had to go to zone probably more so than they both want to play. We haven’t had a lot of time to work against a lot of different type zones, but today what we simply said was, ‘Hey, we’re going to attack. We’re going to get in there.’ We missed some shots that we feel we normally make. We felt like we turned down some shots from the perimeter. Yet, we talk about a lot. We want our team to have an identity of rebounding, and that means getting a good shot up on the glass and going to get it and trying to get multiple shots at it. Coming down the stretch, Fulky did do a good job. He wasn’t very good early. He wasn’t locked in defensively at the start of the game. I took him out early because he didn’t block out, and that’s something we said early. We’re going to hold everybody accountable. You’re going to block out. You’re going to rebound the ball. We subbed a couple of times for guys that were going the other way before we had the ball, but he did answer coming down the stretch. I think our guys understand what. We’re trying to do at the end of the game. In the last two games, we’re able to make the free throws. We did a good job taking care of the ball, but there’s a couple that we gave them that turned into pick-sixes. There’s nothing we can do with that. You take away three or four plays defensively where we gambled in the backcourt and let them go all the way. Overall, I would say we were pretty good defensively. We played hard defensively without fouling.” On the team’s rebounding performance and what he’s seen from Josiah-Jordan James: “He’s good at it. He’s made a conscious effort to do that. I thought E.J. Anosike came in the game and gave us some of that where he came back. He kept the ball alive. He really did a good job with it. We want to get Olivier (Nkhamhoua) doing that. Once we’re able to get each guy going—maybe we can add getting Uros (Plavsic)—where they understand the roles that they have to play. You think about our front line—we’ve got three guys coming off the bench. That’s their number one job is to take rebounding to a different level. I thought Yves (Pons) did a nice job of making some fix-it plays. I think he had a couple of blocks today. He cleaned up a few plays there. Overall, it was a good defensive effort. Again, the guards have to rebound. We are going to be most lethal in transition when our guards come down and rebound. That dribble outlet is really hard to guard and pass ahead. When we get things going, that’s when we’re really at our best—when our guards are rebounding.” On what went into the decision to give Keon Johnson and Jaden Springer more playing time: “Just us playing. Like I said, the other night was the first night we’ve had our bench together. We didn’t want to put them in a situation right off the bat where we could lose them confidence-wise. As a coaching staff, we’re still trying to fight through this ourselves without exhibition games. Up to this point, we’ve played two games. We just made up our mind that they’re going to go early. Last game, it was me. I’m in charge of those subs. We maybe waited a little bit too long. One thing about when you get a run like we had the other night against Colorado, the key is if you can sustain it when you get to the bench. I think we waited too long. Tonight, we did the multiple substitution where we put both of those guys in at one time. It’s going to help all of them. We can keep those minutes down around 25, 26 for everybody. When everybody can be productive in those minutes, it’s going to help everybody. It was just a matter of us trying to figure out ourselves as a coaching staff the best way to get some kind of rotation going. It might mean changing the lineup in the future of starting a different way and see if we get guys coming off the bench and playing a different role. I think one of the key positions is that sixth and seventh guy coming off the bench. That first line perimeter guy coming in and that first line on the front line—that first sub. Those sixth and seventh guys are really important in that they come in and take it to another level. Not maintain it but see if they can take it to another level. Again, I thought E.J. did that defensively. I thought his energy and his burst helped us. When the two young guys came in, they did a good job.” On what the team improved upon from the first game to the second: “Rebounding was certainly one of them, but the other was taking care of the ball. We only had 11 turnovers I think if I am looking at this right, but they were critical. Josiah had three of them, and he did a lot of really good things. He’s a guy that I think should never turn it over. We held the ball for too long a couple of times in their double teams, but we rebounded better. We got our turnovers down, but tonight they got more off those turnovers than Colorado did the other night. I haven’t looked at it yet, but I’m sure they had transition points and outscored us because of those turnovers. There’s no defense for it. I don’t know what they got transition-wise. Those are all really off turnovers. Those are ones we can’t give up.” On how happy he was seeing the team lock down defensively late in the game: “I told them that tonight it’s proven to you guys because we are better shooting team than we shot tonight, but there’s nights when we don’t shoot it well we still have a chance to win it and we will play that kind of defense without fouling. We will be aggressive and get to the free throw line, but two games in a row now coming down the stretch we have defended very well and on the other end offensively, for the most part, we’ve executed and played through the person we need to play through. We’ve made some good plays there, got the ball to the right people at the end of the game that are going to get fouled, but two games in a row our defense has been stellar in terms of getting the kind of stops we need. We want to get those consecutive stops at the end, but if you can do it without fouling it is obviously what you want to do. Knowing that you’re wanting to be aggressive, you’re trying to work hard to not give up those straight-line drives and you don’t want to give up one-pass threes. They do good stuff, the two teams that we have played run really good offensive sets and different things they do put a bind on your defense.” On if he would be more concerned if the team wasn’t getting as many good looks: “I will tell you we turned down some shots. You ask anybody in that locker room, I’m upset with guys when they don’t take open shots because again we can rebound the ball. Like the other night, we got hesitant and turned down shots we should have had, so we have to shoot it and again with those shots. We missed some that you have to make, and at the start of the second half we missed some we should have made. Even Fulky’s shots at the start of the second half weren’t great balanced shots. They went down and made three straight layups coming out of halftime, and we missed three or four of them. But the fact is we cannot turn down open shots. These guys spend too much time in the gym working on shooting to be hesitant. Some of that you have to give credit to Colorado and Cincinnati because they have gone zone against us and like I said, we have spent a total of maybe 15 minutes working against a 1-3-1. We had spent more time prior to our stoppage against a 2-3. The other night we had looks at the basket, we just weren’t in the space we wanted. But we didn’t force one shot the other night against the 2-3 and we didn’t make any of them, but today I just liked the fact that these guys were driving the ball hard.