University of Tennessee Athletics
Vol Hoops: Media Monday Replay
February 20, 2017 | Men's Basketball
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- With in-state showdown against Vanderbilt looming on Wednesday (6:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network), head coach Rick Barnes and sophomore forward Admiral Schofield met with reporters at the Ray & Lucy Hand Digital Studio on Monday.
Full video replays of the press conference can be viewed above while the full transcript of their comments can be found below.
Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes
(On Grant Williams' development)
"Well I think you are going to see a big change in his body physically between now and next year because he has lost 25 pounds. He has probably lost five percent body fat and he still needs to lose five percent more body fat. Admiral (Schofield) has lost 35 pounds, but he came in at 16 percent body fat. Grant is somewhere like that. Admiral's body fat is below seven percent and that is where Grant needs to be, which will change a lot. Grant understands what we are trying to get done. He still has to learn to play harder and has to learn to guard the perimeter better and rebound better. I think he is just getting started. He is going to put time in the gym. I think Admiral is also figuring this out and I hope Grant will get a bit quicker with that. I thought Admiral played his best perimeter defense since he has been here the other night against (Missouri's) Jordan Barnett. Grant needs to do that. I think he had a couple possessions of it. Grant still needs to elevate his intensity on both ends to get where we think he can go. He is really just scratching the surface. I really think he will be a versatile player who plays multiple positions. I want him to be able to guard multiple positions."
(On Jordan Bone having 20 assists to only three turnovers in his last four home games)
"That is what I like to have. I think different point guards play the game differently. Jordan Bone and Lamonte Turner both play the position in different ways. I think what you want is a 3-to-1 ratio, if you can get it, with assists to turnovers. That is what you like to have because you want those guys to have the ball in their hands as much as possible and anything better would be awesome. I just don't want guys to turn the ball over. As a team to keep it under 10 if you can, because turnovers lead to easy baskets for the other team and really hurt you when you are trying to get your defense set. I do like it as a team when we are sharing the ball and we are assisting on most of our baskets. Some teams you are going to play off of the dribble and so game-to-game it can change."
(On the stakes of the next few games)
"This time of year everyone wants to win. I don't care where you are. I said coming into Missouri that I have great respect for what (head coach) Kim Anderson does. They lost a lot of games in a row, but his teams never quit playing and I think that is indicative of how good this league is. His team has continued to get better and if you look around the league all of the teams have gotten better. I have been saying it for weeks that this league is better than the perception. If you look at Vanderbilt, they are playing as well as anyone and they are capable of doing a lot of things coming down the stretch. Ole Miss is a terrific team, but these next four games determines lot for all of us."
(On what he's seeing from Vanderbilt)
"It's hard because we go to Kentucky after having a win here and play as bad as we've played all year. Sometimes you can't explain it and I wasn't expecting that at any point. That never entered my thought that we could play that poorly after this time of year. There's a lot of things. We've been hit with flu bug. They've maybe gone through that. I would imagine all teams (have dealt with that) because most teams go through something like that. The one thing we know when you look at their schedule, I think they've played as tough a schedule as anybody in the country and they're capable of winning any game that they play. We know that, we know they do a great job of spreading you out and driving the ball, kicking and get going on the 3-point line. One game you can say one thing or the other but we know how capable they are. They came in here last year and I think it was the worst loss all last year. It was never a game from the start. They got it going and I think it was a snow day and a nine o'clock game if I remember right and we didn't have it from the get-go and they did."
(On the importance of the last four games)
"We talk about it. Every week we get together and talk about it. They know where we are now. I don't have to mention it anymore. They know. They're in tune. They know what's out there. They also know that we've got to get better today. We either play Tuesday or Wednesday and this week we played an early Saturday and we were off yesterday so we come in today and tomorrow are work days and we have to get ready. They know. They know where we are and what we need to do and what they know is we need to work hard and we've got to win games."
(On if certain players play better against certain teams)
"I know one thing, (Georgia's) J.J. Frazier plays really well against us. So maybe the answer to your question is yes, I hope in this situation Jordan (Bone) will play the same way he played and do it even better. I guess that's been his best game all year and it was a big night for him. We just want to see him and the rest of the guys be consistent and we need a lot of guys to play well from here on out. Robert (Hubbs) went through a period and it's nice to see him bounce back the other night. I was really proud of the way he came back. He had struggled for about a week-and-a-half where he wasn't able to practice much. Jordan is getting better, but he still has to sustain it. He still doesn't sustain it the way we need it, but he is definitely trying."
(On his evaluation of this year's team)
"We have fallen short (in some areas) when we felt like we were moving ahead and (then) we would go backwards. It would be fundamental things where you would think guys were getting it defensively and then they didn't. I think at times when we have fallen short our maturity has shown up. I think there are a lot of people that think that. Right now one question (will be) how do we handle this, coming down the stretch? It will be interesting, because some of these guys are a year removed from high school. Stakes are obviously bigger now than they have ever been involved with. So it will be interesting to see how they respond. Like you, I do not know. I hope they can just take care of the process and go out and just do what we talked about. Where we were different a year ago is that we can score inside (now). We really struggled to score there (last season). We have more guys that can have big nights for us. Last year we had a couple of guys that did that, but I think consistently we have more guys that can do that now. We are a better overall defensive team even though we are not consistent enough. We have to continue to get better, but we are better than we were a year ago."
(On how the players have developed this season)
"They have. I think the biggest thing they are learning is how hard it is to win. Sometimes I have to tell them that they have to understand winning is precious, and to do that it takes great effort. Everyone wants to win, and you have to have great respect night-in and night-out and know that other teams are capable, like (Georgia senior) J.J. Frazier (proved against us). There are teams that can do that. Vanderbilt has got a number of guys who can get going and get a bunch of shots. I think it is them having the mental toughness to stay engaged and to stay on edge. We were not on edge at Kentucky. We talked about as a team where we had some guys thinking about anything and everything other than what they should have thought about. We have gotten better with that, but it is not where we have to be to be the team we want to be night-in and night-out."
(On the postseason outlook for SEC teams)
"It's always like that every year, when you think about it, because the teams that are going to be normally the last four in are going to be teams from the 'Power Five' that are all bunched up like this league is. But it goes back to the brackets mean nothing right now. I mean, you've got four games left and we've all witnessed in our lifetime teams get hot in the tournament, win some more games, teams get knocked out in the tournament that are right there. There's so much basketball left to play in terms of the games that mean a lot. Obviously it's not a number of that many games, but, I mean, a one-game swing, two-game swing, three-game swing, six-game swing can do a lot for a lot of people. So it doesn't matter really what the brackets are right now. It's going to be, when it's all said and done, a couple of weeks from now, three weeks from now, whatever it is, when everybody's body of work is put up there for the last time: If you've done enough, you'll be in. If you haven't, you won't."
(On the team's defensive progress)
"Yeah, it's just like Saturday (against Missouri). If you go back to Saturday, you know, we're up in a game and, you've heard me say it before, your defense gets the lead, your offense has to keep it. We're up, Jordan (Bone) comes up the floor and just turns the ball over. That's a guy taking the ball away from him, and instead of turning around and trying to get back, he just stopped for a second and they go down to score. Grant (Williams) misses a shot, goes in, and fouls. Things like that. That's where we're not there. You don't make those plays at the end of the game. You don't. After both of those guys did that, they didn't play anymore because it's playing a game. It's not just out there trying to do whatever. You're still always trying to work the game, and that's what we're trying to teach these guys -- that every possession is important because this is a game of habit, and wanting guys to do the right thing all the time. That's what we're trying to get to because to be the program we want to be, we have to get there regardless of the score. Some turnovers are going to happen, but careless turnovers and careless fouls should never happen. And we're too far in the season to let that slide by."
(On how to manage the last few weeks of the season)
"Kind of like a rollercoaster, you know? We start here early, we go up, then we want to come down a little bit, then go back up, down, and then we want to keep climbing. That's kind of how we try. We taper it like that. This time of year, I think young guys need all of the work they can get, but they can't take it. I think older guys don't need as much work but can take it, so I think the balance is somewhere right there between. You know, older guys, you can give them pretty much all you want; they can handle it. But young guys can't, so we're conscious of that. We're around them a lot. Our staff is so involved with our guys, and, you know, between (strength and conditioning coach) Garrett (Medenwald) and (athletic trainer) Chad (Newman), they do such a great job of knowing where guys are and what we have to do. Like last week, we cut our practices and we tell them we just have to get our work done, and by now we should be more efficient with it. They still always continue to work individually, but we're not ever going to drop the intensity. We may drop the amount of workload, but the intensity is never going to come down because we think you have to keep building that."
Tennessee forward Admiral Schofield
(On finding his niche on the team)
"Well, when you're young, and you come into a program like this, you want to make a big impact. You want to do that by scoring the ball. As a young player, you come to thinking that scoring is the outlet to success here. The biggest thing for me was, coming in, I just wanted to play well and win games. I'm just a very competitive person. I would let that competitiveness get in the way of me listening to everything the coach was saying. I'm a good listener, and I learned fast that sometimes I was in the heat of the moment. I was competing and I didn't get that key detail that could separate me from everyone else. So the biggest thing now is just listening and taking in everything, no matter how he's saying it, or what he's saying. I know everything that Coach (Rick) Barnes is trying to give me is, really, to benefit me in the end."
(On being a quality player coming off the bench)
"I think the biggest thing is (starters) like Kyle Alexander, Grant Williams, they set the tone for how the game is going to be played. If they don't do that, my role is to come in and re-set that tone. But the big thing for me is when you're on the bench, you get to study the game and understand how the game is being played, what's the flow of the game, what's needed when you get in, if you need to rebound, or if you need a low-post presence scoring the ball. It's really beneficial, especially coming off the bench. You get to see how the game is really flowing. I think, for me, it's just really understanding what our team needs and that's physical play down low, rebounding the ball and scoring the ball when I get a chance to finish at the basket, and then, being able to stretch the defense a little bit, and knocking down threes and jumpshots, things of that nature. But right now, I'm just playing within my role, taking shots that I work on every day: mid-range jumpshots, hook shots and trying to get to the basket. Then, occasionally, when the team sags off and doesn't think I can shoot it, knock down a three or two."
(On the Vols' recent approach toward games)
"We understand the situation that we're in. We understand that we're right there, as far as tournament games and tournament play. We understand that these four games are very important, especially, in the end of the season. February is our most important month. So right now, we're just taking it one game at a time, but we understand that we have to win out, these next four games, to for sure be in the tournament at the end of the year. The biggest thing for us is, we're here. What we work for we have right in our grasp. It's just, who wants it? I think we want it enough, but the mental aspect, we've still got to grow in. We got a big win on Saturday. We've got to understand that we've got another opponent coming in Wednesday and an opponent on Saturday, where we've really got to focus on this opponent on Wednesday and take this one game at a time. Execute the game plan, defend at a high-level, be able to rebound the ball at a high level and score the ball at a high-level. So we've just got to come out and execute our game plan, what we go over in practice every day, understand what the coaches want from us. We've got to understand that our intensity today prepares us for what we can bring on Wednesday."
(On seeing his freshman teammates learning)
"Well, you can tell by the way they come in and they work. They really do care and that's the first step. Someone who's committed and cares about the game. And basically, for them, they're going through the same things that I went through. Being able to receive a message, understand what's being said, instead of how it's being said, because Coach Barnes can be very intense. That intensity is not going to change. I think the biggest thing for us, as older guys, is to teach them to understand, that's how you go about it. You've got to really listen to what he's saying. You've got to try and work on the things he's saying because he can really stretch your ability. For the young guys, they've really taken heed more than we did last year, Shembari (Phillips), Kyle (Alexander), and I. They've really taken a good listening ear, and applied what Coach has been saying. They've been playing very well this season."
(On his first impressions of Grant Williams)
"When he first got here he did a lot of moves that you could get away with in high school, but at the college level, you can't. I had to be able to help him understand the type of speed you have to play with on the offensive end and the type of intensity he has to play with on the defensive end. He's still learning on the defensive end, but he's done a very good job, offensively, taking shots that he's good at. He's not shy. He's good with both hands. I think Grant's really grown in the aspect of maturity, just being able to listen, because he's a very smart basketball player. He knows the game very well. When you know the game very well it's kind of hard to listen to somebody tell you something when you already know it. It's a tough thing, but at the same time, I think he's grown in that aspect. Offensively, he's an explosive scorer. Thirty points, clearly, he can grab 10 rebounds. I think the biggest thing for Grant is, learning that defensive intensity that he needs to bring, to be on edge all the time. He's working on it and I'm helping him a little bit."
