University of Tennessee Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Vols 74, Tennessee Tech 68
December 13, 2016 | Men's Basketball
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Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes
(Opening statement)
"Watching that game tonight was almost like watching Tennessee Tech-Michigan State game a couple days ago. Almost a carbon copy where Michigan State was up and—same thing we did—started thinking it was over. I told the team when I showed them the tape this morning, I said, 'I promise you this team is going to play as hard, I don’t care if they’re down 20 or up 20. They’re extremely well coached, they play really hard' and even when we were up 20 I told our guys at halftime, 'I showed you this morning how they played.' You go from one turnover to 13 in the second half a lot of things where we went 10 straight possessions offensively just making simply bad plays. I also think you've got to give them credit. They started pushing out a little bit, putting on some pressure. It was the decisions we made with the ball within our offense, illegal screens trying to feed the post when it’s not even close, bad shots. And I thought after we dunked the ball once or twice the guys acted like a bunch of high school guys cause they thought the game was over with. We just stared jacking some threes up there and it doesn’t take long when you play against a team that’s well coached that plays hard. They got comfortable and made us have to make plays at the end to win."
(On if he expected a tough game with the 48-hour turnaround)
"Well honestly, I don’t know if I expected it. Right now I think with our team I’m still in the 'I don’t know, really,' honestly. We’ve shown we can play well, what we haven’t shown is we can play a really solid 40 minutes. That’s what we haven’t shown. Just really bad decisions. One stat we should start putting on here is players saying ‘my bad.’ No kidding. 'My bads' get you beat. Just fundamental things you can’t do. You can’t help up away from the basket, you can’t set illegal screens when you haven’t scored three or four times in a row. We have to play together as a team. If we don’t play well as a team we’ll turn the ball over. Again, our point guard play—too many bad decisions. You go back and look at point guard play tonight, which Shembari Phillips had two turnovers, I think Lamonte Turner had three and Kwe Parker didn’t have any. Five there. Grant Williams has got to stop turning the ball over too. It’s not like we’re putting them into a position to handle the ball. Through that stretch right there, there were way, way too many turnovers."
(On what impressed him about the 22-point lead early)
"I’m not thinking about that part. Again, I think it shows that we’re capable. I thought our energy was good and they came out driving the ball and we adjusted. They’re a hard team because they open up two gaps where it’s really hard to stay in front of the ball and help your teammate. We adjusted there and took care of the ball. That was big there. We only had one turnover at halftime, shot the ball. I thought we let things happen within our offense and then we got away from it. Again, we still don’t have enough guys that understand you've got to know, when you look at the scoreboard, if you haven’t scored in four minutes. When you haven’t scored you've got to say, ‘Well, we've got to get good shots.' It’s not, ‘Well, I’m going to put my head down and try to run to the rim and go against three or four guys and lose the ball. We run a set and a guy dunks it and you throw it three feet away from him. The more you go into the season obviously you have smaller margins for error because the competition gets better. Again, we won a game tonight against a really good and an extremely well-coached team."
(On if he recognized Lamonte Turner as a shooter)
"The best thing he does is he is a spot-up shooter. He’s not the kind of guy that’s going to beat you off the dribble a lot. He’s a guy, if he would really understand the system as much as say Jordan Bowden, he would be so much better. He’s playing a little bit different position; he’s still thinking shot first as opposed to running the team. I think Bowden shot a three and missed it and Detrick Mostella made a big time save to go get it and Lamonte just grabbed it and shot it. Just a horrendous shot. Point guards just don’t think like that. They think, ‘Where are we right here?' We got down in a shot-clock situation and we stopped getting into our two-man games and that directly falls on the point guard. Not getting the ball, not getting it centered. I think now teams are going to pressure Shembari, they’re going to pressure Lamonte, which I don’t have a problem with. I was just asked by (Bob) Kesling about Detrick not scoring the ball. I think one thing Detrick is starting to understand is he can impact the game in a way when he’s not making shots. He’s going to make his shots. Tonight he had six rebounds. There were some good things, but again we’re not where we need to be in a mental standpoint for 40 minutes yet."
(On coming off of the game at North Carolina)
"I don’t know that I ever say I’m worried. I can tell you the words would be: I had no idea (how we’d respond) coming off of the game(Sunday). I don’t have a clue. I do think they’re getting better. They’re paying attention to the scouting reports at the end of the game.
"Shembari is a guy that we think can be as good a defender (as there is) in the country, but that slip dunk was his play because Grant had to cover and help because he ran a little fade screen, read screen, and (Shembari) was giving him too much ground.
"The second half is disappointing. It is, but I still don’t want to take away from Tennessee Tech, because I thought they created that. We helped them. After we had a couple dunks they acted like they thought it was going to be a pick-up game and had bad shots. We’re lucky to get it done down the stretch. We did make some plays down the stretch and had a couple stops. Hubbs made the play of the game probably when he blocked the 3-point shot down there in the corner. That was a great play.
"Again, I’m disappointed in the way we played the second half. I’m just disappointed again in our point guards. They aren’t doing their jobs for 40 minutes. Everybody talks about Bone coming back, but he won’t just come back—it’s not going to be like ‘poof’ and everything is better. He has to work his way back in. Shembari and Lamonte have to get better."
(On Robert Hubbs III’s offensive and defensive performance at North Carolina)
“I’ve been with Hubbs now… I don’t know how many games, but he really showed me something in North Carolina this year, more than any game we played. He really wanted to win. He was into that game in a way like nobody else on the team. I mean, the other guys wanted to win, but he had put his heart and soul into it. After the game, he was devastated. The fact of the matter is, it goes back to our players. Our guards don’t understand that he needs to be leading us in shots attempted. We need to work harder to get him the ball. From a leadership standpoint, I thought he was terrific, the best I’ve ever seen of him at the North Carolina game from start to finish. He’s a guy that’s not afraid to take responsibility and say, ‘It’s my fault.’ He’s become the leader that we want him to be. He’s working hard. He worked harder defensively at North Carolina than I’ve ever seen him play because he wanted to win in the worst kind of way."
(On the rotation in tonight’s game)
"Again, point guard play. Shembari had a couple fouls early, and Lamonte, I don’t know any other way to get him to understand that he has to run this team. It’s great when he’s making shots, but in a game like tonight when he does the play, simple plays that he can’t make, we’re going to take him out. Tonight and in the game against North Carolina, he and Shembari gave up 50 percent of the points. Tonight, early, he made some threes and I’m sure some people were thinking, ‘Why are you taking him out of the game?’ But on the other end, he was breaking down defensively. The only way we can teach him is that he’s going to have to play on both ends. It has to become really important to him. I don’t know any other way to do it. I’ve watched other guys who have been in the program for six months trying to do things defensively, and he needs to do it. For Shembari, that has to be his calling card."
(On John Fulkerson)
"There are times you have to score. He doesn’t look to score. He showed at North Carolina that he has the ability to score, but he doesn’t work hard enough to get the ball or want the ball. Tonight, he’s getting the ball in the post and he likes space, as most post guys do. They’re packing back down in there and they’re wanting us to shoot threes, and he has to play quicker. He also has to work to get a deeper post-out. He still doesn’t understand space on the floor. When he’s at the top of the key, people are backing off and he’s trying to force passes that aren’t there. Again, we need him. Somebody said he hurt his elbow but he’s rubbing his shoulder so I don’t know which one was hurting. Tonight, he didn’t take a shot and that’s on him. He did touch the ball enough."
Tennessee guard Robert Hubbs III
(On getting the big block at the end of the game)
"I read that play all the way. A lot of teams try to dribble to the wing, fake the hand-off, and throw the drift pass. I think Kentucky did it last year. I saw it all the way. Once I saw [Aleksa] Jugovic slide to the corner, I just read it. I tried to steal it, but I couldn’t get there in time. I just played the shot and blocked it. We needed that, so I had to make a play."
(On being nervous as the game got closer)
"Not nervous. We just had to stay poised and do what we do. On the offensive side, execute, and on defense, just come up with plays. We have to learn how to close games out and finish it."
(On having a letdown in the second half)
"We just have to keep everyone engaged in the second half. We have stay on edge and play the game, not the score. That starts with me. I have to do a better job with communicating with my guys, and just trying to pass it on and them follow my lead."
Tennessee guard Lamonte Turner
(On being a confident shooter)
"I’m pretty confident shooting the ball. That’s something I know I can do. I have to get better at running the team. And like Coach Barnes says, get better defensively and running the team."
(On Robert Hubbs' play)
"I’m proud of Hubbs. Hubbs works really hard. He has a great work ethic. He listens. He is one of the most athletic guys I’ve seen. I’m just really glad he’s in the groove right now."
(On learning from tonight’s game)
"It’s definitely something to learn from. We’re not using us being young as an excuse anymore. We don’t care about how young we are. We have to finish games, just like any other team in country. We just have to get better at it."
Tennessee guard Shembari Phillips
(On being disappointed by letting Tennessee Tech back in the game)
"It’s a little disappointing. We have to learn how to put 40 minutes together. We just came off a very tough loss at North Carolina. I don’t know if it is guys getting fatigued or whatnot, but we have to make it important to us to put 40 minutes together. Once we are able to do that, that’s when we’ll become a really good team and reach the caliber of a team that we are capable of being."
(On if the team thought it could coast in the second half)
"I don’t believe we said that. Our actions have to match our words. We have to come out with the same intensity we had in the first half, if not up it a little bit. We can’t come out lackadaisical because no team is going to lay down, especially not (Tennessee Tech)."
(On Robert Hubbs III becoming a leader)
"He’s just a lot more poised. He is really understanding what he has to do offensively. And defensively, he’s also understanding what he has to do. He’s leading by actions right now, leading by example. When he’s playing well, we’re all playing well and we’re just following his lead."
Tennessee Tech head coach Steve Payne
(Opening statement)
"I’m proud of how we came back. It could have gotten ugly; we have done that before. There are a lot of new guys, a lot of new pieces. We are still trying to figure out how we fit in our roles and we are playing a lot of people. I thought in the first half their pressure made us jittery and unsure of ourselves with the ball. We made a lot of mistakes on both ends. They’re competitive kids, they’ll come back. I knew we would fight and play well. The only thing I’m disappointed about was in the second half with our rebounding. They killed us on the glass in the second half but we played more the way we wanted to play with some energy and we have to do that when the ball isn’t going in the hole, too."
(Comparing tonight’s game to TTU’s comeback effort against Michigan State on Saturday)
"We are going to play hard. Our kids are going to work hard. They are tough kids but no, getting down 18 is not what we want to do. When you’re playing Michigan State and Tennessee, they have great teams and great coaches. You’ve got to keep competing or it will get embarrassing. We are going to compete. We’ve got enough guys that want to be out there and they are going to compete hard. Tonight, and against Michigan State, we had a possession that cut it to four with under two minutes left and we just missed the shot. Tonight we made a lot of them, but we just had the one possession that was really big for us late. We got our shooter in the corner and Tennessee just did a better job on defense. We ran the play right, they just had four guys over and now he (shooter) has to make a better decision to move that ball and let someone else get that shot. Our go-to guy is the open man. That’s a learning experience for this team. Also, there’s that learning experience in being that first option on offense, where he was our third option last year. He’s learning what it means to be a target every time he comes out. I think everybody does target him right now and he’s learning to be a good player with that intention."
(On the final two possessions of the game)
"We ran the play exactly right. They did a better job defensively. They had three guys in the corner, all we have to do now is make a decision. It looked to me like we executed exactly what we wanted. We drove it, had the hammer screen on the back, and he was open. We got him the ball … Better athletes come close. All he’s got to do is move the ball to the open guy. For us, the go-to is the open guy. That’s a learning experience. That doesn’t cost us a game. That offensive foul, they called a foul. That’s about it. It was a foul. A tough one to take but they called it. That didn’t cost us the game either."
