University of Tennessee Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Vols 91, Mississippi State 74
January 21, 2017 | Men's Basketball
Recap |
Final Stats |
USATSI Photo Gallery 
|
Photo Gallery
Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes
(On the difference in the second half)
"Well one, we rebounded the ball better, and we got out in the open court and started getting the ball down the floor. I thought we did a good job attacking in transition. A big part of it too was having Grant (Williams) back on the floor. They had some shots at the rim. Those shots aren’t as easy to make as people think. The fact is, we got out and ran and started making some shots. We told our guys at halftime that nobody had to go looking for shots, but guys had to take shots when they were open. Second half, I thought we got in a better flow."
(On what you told Grant Williams and Jordan Bone’s at half)
"I can’t tell you what I said to them. The fact is, they responded. I thought Grant would be fine; he just didn’t get to play in the first half. We needed Jordan to be more aggressive. The second half, he was in there anyway helping us. Those guys in the first half were just playing volleyball with it around the rim. They were coming down the lane, high-ball screen, the guy setting the screen was just having a straight run at the rim, and our backside defense wasn’t doing anything to come in and challenge that. Second half we did a better job."
(On the effort on the offensive glass)
"Rebounding is a big part of the game. Lew (Evans) is not a guy that is going to play above the rim, but he is a guy who will work and try and go get it. He does a lot of little intangible type things. Where he shows up better than anything is with our point guards. He’s a guy talking and trying to get them to settle down and understand exactly that is going on in the game. Rebounding wise, we talked a lot that we need to get more than one attempt, and we did a pretty good job of going and getting it."
(On the difference between the Ole Miss game)
"I think when you are a .500 team, one word is inconsistent. You’re just not consistent. I was sitting there again, and we had a lead and I said, ‘We were here the other night, what are you going to do now?' How do you lose those leads? It’s turnovers and bad shots. Jordan (Bone) came down and raised up and took a 15-foot jump shot. When I took him out of the game I said, 'I’m got to ask you one question, are you tired?’ and he said, 'Yes.' When you’re tired, you can’t shoot the ball. You have to learn to rest on the offensive end, because you can never rest on the defensive end. That’ll come with experience. It all goes back to turnovers, bad shots, allowing teams to get out and get easy baskets. We were up 20 and I was upset with them. He takes that shot, they come down, Robert Hubbs allows the guy to come in the post, 3-point play. The guy missed it, we don’t box out and they hit a three. So within one possession, we gave up five points. You can’t do that. And if you do it multiple times, that’s what happened at Ole Miss. It happened four times. You lose those games. When you have a lead, you can’t let down mentally. You have to keep scoring. You have to keep executing your offense. When you break that rhythm, it normally leads to something not good for you, and something good for the other team."
(On the passing in today’s game)
"Make the passes that we need to make in our offense. We’re a much better team when the ball doesn’t stick. I don’t think we’re a very good team late into the shot clock. We don’t even want to play late into the shot clock. If you knew what I know, and watched what I watched and would show them, we turn down shots. We don’t ask anyone to go searching for shots. When you start turning down shots and you get late into the shot clock, who knows what is going to happen. When we catch the ball, we catch-and-see, we look at what we want to get. It’s there and we’re not taking advantage of it enough."
(On Robert Hubbs III)
"He’s important because, one, he’s the one guy on the team, honestly, that can make a tough shot. He’s got a target on his back and when he gets the ball into position on the floor he does a great job of getting up and he’s got such a great vertical jump when he gets up. He does have a soft touch. There comes a point in time in the game where you’re going to have to make a tough shot and you’re going to have to do that more than you think. But he’s a guy who we have confidence in that can do that."
(On boxing out and inconsistences)
"Well, it’s really important for us that we box out. I told them after the first time out, I said, we’re not going to out-jump these guys. We’re not going to out-jump them, believe me. Because we’re small, and you go back again, and when we’re at our best is when our guards are down there helping us rebound the ball. That definitely happened a bit better in the second half. You asked about the inconsistencies, I have no idea what’s going to happen the next game. I like to think that we can move forward, but now you've got the top team in the league coming in, undefeated in conference play. But I like to say, to be brutally honest, I don’t know what to expect."
(On players responding after the Ole Miss game)
“Well, they knew that I was angry because we had a really hard practice on Thursday. We had a hard, physical practice. And as I came in on Friday, Garrett, our strength and conditioning coach said, 'Coach the guys are really sore.' And I said, 'Well they should’ve played harder the other night.' But the fact is, we made sure we told them we’re going to get our legs under us but we’re not going to stop improving and we’re going to learn. We can watch all the tape that we want to watch and keep showing them what goes in to winning and what goes in to losing. But at some point in time it’s about how good of a team do they want to be and how hard are they willing to work. Because it’s not easy, it’s not going to be easy. We play Mississippi State again, it won’t be easy. Kentucky won’t be easy and Kansas State coming here won’t be easy. They’re not easy. I thought at the end of the game, again, our bad habits show up. We turn the ball over. I know you guys probably think that’s insignificant, but it really is significant. I want guys to appreciate every possession and learn to play every possession."
(On Grant Williams)
"One, he knows that we need him. He’s still young-minded. Like I didn’t even know that after the Ole Miss game he got some kind of rash that he picked up and had welts all over his body. And I said, 'What does that have to do with how you play? You don’t have to look pretty anyway.' The fact is, it’s maturity. And at least tonight, he started trying to dunk the basketball. Grant can get off of the ground, and he does play bigger than he is. But he does more on the defensive end than he does on the offensive end. I don’t know why sometimes he fumbles the ball because he has great hands. He can drive the ball. He’s another player like Lew (Evans) that has an absolute clear understanding – Grant Williams and Lew Evans could run every single thing that we do from any position on the court. So when those guys are on the floor, that’s when we play well. It’s simple, we need Grant on the floor and we’re going to need him on the floor Tuesday night, for certain."
Tennessee forward Lew Evans
(On rebounding effectively against a taller Mississippi State team)
"It’s just toughness, energy and effort. It’s just trying to out-tough the other team and give more energy than the other team. That’s really what rebounding is all about."
(On closing out the second half against Mississippi State versus closing out the second half against Ole Miss)
"It’s just toughness. We talked about it all week. We got out-toughed in the Ole Miss game. They just played harder than us. So leading up into this game, we’ve talked about it. We can’t have letdowns like that. I know we’re young, but we just have to play 40 minutes and out-tough the other team. We’re not the best talent-wise, but I think team-wise, if we play together, and we out-tough everyone, we can go a long way."
(On whether there was talk of not letting up when leading big versus Mississippi State)
"It was said by (Robert) Hubbs. I also said it. You can’t let up. We just had to keep going, moving forward and trying to get better. You know, working on us as a team."
Tennessee forward Admiral Schofield
(On if he could feel a hard practice coming on after Wednesday’s loss to Ole Miss)
"I could feel it. Well, me being here for a year and a half, I kind of know Coach Barnes by now. S, I knew practice was going to be pretty tough. I could tell, but I didn’t expect it to be how it was."
(On concern about Thursday’s practice following the loss at Ole Miss)
"No, no concern. It was just how intense it was going to be."
(On tapping into consistency after being an up-and-down team)
"I think the biggest thing is that we have to stick together. We’ve got to understand what we’re looking for on the offensive end, and what we’ve got to do to make changes on the defensive end. If we just execute those things, I think we’ll be in a good position to win, and just sustaining energy and keeping the drive for 40 minutes, and just doing our jobs to the best of our abilities. The biggest thing for us is we’ve got to stick together. We’ve just got to stick together. Stick to what’s natural, and what we do best."
Tennessee guard Jordan Bowden
(On what Coach Barnes challenged him with at half)
"Coach just told and challenged me to be tough. He said I wasn’t tough in the first half. I wasn’t getting up and rebounding, so I tried to do that in the second half."
(On a career-high seven rebounds fueling his offensive performance versus Mississippi State)
"Yeah, a little bit. Coach was just telling me to go up, rebound and stick my nose in a play."
(On the difference in second half versus the first half against Mississippi State)
"I give credit to Jordan Bone. He always looks to find you and the open guy. He really helped us."
Mississippi State head coach Ben Howland
(Opening statement)
"We have to give Tennessee credit. We weren’t able to create turnovers at all. They only had 7 turnovers. They really hurt us on the offensive glass. I really like how physical and tough they are inside and it hurt us all night long. Robert Hubbs is a very good player and he made some big shots for them, but losing on the boards by 14 we won’t beat anyone in our conference. We have to do a better job rebounding and guys need to get in there and fight and rebound for us. We didn’t do a good enough job in that respect. Credit to Tennessee, though. They have played a very difficult schedule and they have been hardened by it. They are very tough physically. If you look at their bodies, if you look at Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield and Lew Evans, the fifth-year, played good for them today. If you look at his numbers he has nine rebounds tonight in 25 minutes and that is a big number. I think Schnider Herard had 11 and no one else had more than five so that kid got good minutes."
(On Mississippi State’s size advantage)
"The size does not affect Tennessee. They have one of the shortest teams in the country, but they are wide, they are physical and they are athletic. If you watch that game over, one play that really resonated with me was (Tennessee’s Grant Williams) wanted to block Schnider (Herard) so he hit so hard—legally in the right way—his butt just wacked him. He sent a message from the get-go that this is how we are going to play and be ready for a fight. I respect that. They play the right way."
(On only seven turnovers from Tennessee)
"They shot 46 percent from the field so obviously we want to do better. The first half, though, we did a good job defensively. They (shot) 38 percent and we were fighting. The second half just got away from us and we did a poor job on the defensive end. They play small and they have good ball handlers as well. So only forcing seven turnovers is indicative of a long night for us."
(On Schnider Herard's performance)
"I think Schnider did a good job. I am most pleased with him with defensive rebounds. This is his best rebounding game of his young career and so he did a nice job getting the ball. He just needs to get better defensively helping on the weak side, recognizing slips, being able to extend and get back to his guy. But on the offensive end he did a terrific job tonight and was a real force."
(On battling through a slow start)
"We talked about it during the game. We were settling for threes and not attacking the basket and that was a real problem for us. The other problem was getting Lamar (Peters) two quick fouls in two and a half minutes. That bothered us and he was out of sorts with the fouls, so he has to play better and not pick up those fouls."
