What Rick Barnes Said Ahead of Tennessee’s Opener Against Gardner-Webb

By Tucker Harlin

#12 Tennessee hosts Gardner-Webb in its season opener Monday at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center. Tip off is at 7 p.m. ET and the game airs on SEC Network Plus.

Head coach Rick Barnes addressed the media ahead of Monday’s contest. Here’s everything he said:

ON THE TEAM’S RESPONSE IN PRACTICE:

“I think they know they did some things we talked about cleaning up from the Davidson scrimmage and in the Indiana game. Our offspeed coverage wasn’t what we wanted it to be. At one point as we were picking up we got lost in the zone, just commotion where we were really wanting to play hard and do things the right way, but we didn’t do everything we needed to. I thought we were missing shots we were capable of making. Overall, it was a great experience for us. As a coach, the main thing is you’re able to take that and teach from it. You have a chance to show guys things they can correct. It’s the self-inflicted wounds that really hurt you the most.”

ON CHAZ LANIER:

“He missed some shots he’s capable of making, he’s still learning. You look at it with so many young guys that haven’t been out there and then you look at our transfer portal guys, we’ve got to get in a groove in terms of being together. It’s a whole new experience for Zakai (Zeigler). A year ago, he settled in with his new teammates, he was trying to figure them out while they were trying to figure him out. I think it’s going to be different for him (Lanier), but we know what he’s capable of and we’re going to keep encouraging him to do what he needs to help the team.

ON OFFENSIVE ISSUES:

“We’ve got to make shots, there’s no doubt. With that said, I’ve always said to our guys that we need to find a way to win games when we’re not making shots. We had high quality shots but we didn’t make them, and that’s part of it. We made a ton of mistakes defensively, but we did enough to make it a four-point game. We did not execute in the last two minutes of the game. We made poor decisions and really got rushed and didn’t do the things we had talked about. All of that can be corrected. Everybody understands we can have better communication from player to player in that situation because we got what we wanted on the court. Zakai (Zeigler) felt like we had we needed but we didn’t execute.”

ON ZAKAI ZEIGLER’S SHOT SELECTION:

“He had some that were (good shots) and some that weren’t (good shots) and he knows it and he’s trying to figure it out too. He’s been there before. It happened a year ago in his first game on the court back in Maui when he started playing. Things weren’t happening, and he felt because he’s a competitive player that he’s got to go try and make something happen. That’s just his competitive spirit and something you don’t want to take away from him. He’ll learn from it like he always does, he’ll make the adjustments.”

ON FELIX OKPARA’S OFFENSE:

“There’s a lot you can learn around a person everyday. With Felix (Okpara) we realized how hard he works. He’s an extremely hard worker who can do a lot, he’s someone we feel comfortable getting it (the ball) to. But like anyone, he’s got to know his spacing on the court.”

ON ZAKAI ZEIGLER’S URGE TO DO TOO MUCH:

“That’s naturally going to happen with him because it’s in his DNA. He knows we need other players around him to figure out what they’re going to be, what they’re going to do, what they can do, and they’ve got to be consistent doing that. I certainly don’t want to say we’ve peaked right now because we haven’t. I looked back as I do every year at games at the beginning of the year, and we weren’t a very good team in Maui last year. We came back an played maybe our worst half of the year against (North) Carolina, and that second half was a big turning point for us. I think a lot of teams go through that. You hope you can get through it without losing games, but the fact is this team has chance to be good and we’ll continue to grow and take care of details. That’s what it comes down to.”

ON THE 4 SPOT:

"They played hard the other night. I thought Jahmai (Mashack) did a really good job, I didn’t think he was rushed by anything. When he was at the 4 he did a good job defending against bigger guys. I thought Cade (Phillips) and Igor (Milicic) were anxious but I think you expect it. We’ve gone through the film, but it took us an hour and a half to get through the first 10 minutes because there’s so much teaching. We believe in them and know they can get it done and they’ve got to get better.”

ON THE DEFENSE AGAINST INDIANA:

“Overall, the effort was good. There’s no part of what we do where we don’t have to get better, but as bad as we were on the other end, it kept us within striking distance. We did get our hands on a lot of deflections, but we didn’t convert like we needed to there. We had chances to get easy baskets but we didn’t take advantage of it. Every team in the country wants some easy baskets, no team wants go down and play against a set defense every time.”

ON IGOR MILICIC:

“He would tell you the speed’s different. We think he’ll continue to settle down because he’s got so much more he can do, it’s just a matter of him understanding what we need him to do for us so we can expand his role. We will expand his role because he has the ability to do it. The biggest thing for the young guys and the new guys is understanding what we have to do on the defensive end. Most of their first thoughts are ‘offense, offense, offense’ and that will take care of itself.”

ON STRUGGLING TO GET THE BALL TO FELIX OKPARA:

“It goes both ways. He’s got to get his space on the court and they’ve got to know when to deliver it. Same thing on the perimeter with screening. Anytime you set a screen and both guys don’t do their job, it won’t work.”

ON CAM CARR’S CONSISTENCY:

“It all starts defensively. I think he’s more focused the last two weeks than he’s ever been since he’s been here. I think he’s starting to realize how hard it is to play the game the right way, and he’s a player we’re going to keep going with because we know he can do it. He thought he knew more about the game than he did, and I’d say that about anybody in the program. The older guys have been through it and they know what we’re looking for. Cam (Carr) just needs to stack days on top of days of doing the things we need to do, and he’s one of the guys we need to expand his role.”

ON GARDNER-WEBB:

“They’re going to play really fast. They’re well-coached, they’ve got a new coach. They’re going to really try and score quick. They were one of the fastest teams last year and can almost play with a 17-second shot clock when they get down the floor. They know what they’re doing, they know how they want to play. They spread you out and they’re a really good cutting team. If you turn your head and get caught looking, they’ll take advantage of it.