University of Tennessee Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Gonzaga 86, Vols 76
December 18, 2016 | Men's Basketball
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Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes
(Opening statement)
"Gonzaga is a really good basketball team. I have a lot of respect for Mark (Few), his staff, and his players. I’ve known him for a long time. I think he’s got as good of a team as he has ever had. I think he’s going to become an even bigger story in college basketball. I think if you look ahead, he has always done tremendous things with his team in the league. It could be the first time in a long time that you have a team that could be capable of being undefeated headed into postseason play.
"We’re a team that can’t play the way we started the game. I thought we absolutely played as poorly as we have all year. I think you give them credit for that. I didn’t like our demeanor as a team. We had some guys who… I don’t know what the word would be. We didn’t give ourselves a chance there early, and against a team as good as Gonzaga, you can’t make some of the plays like we did, like at the end of the half. They don’t need any help. Our guys fought again, but like I told them, it’s one thing being talked about as a scrappy team that fights all the time… at some point we have to want to be more than that. We have to want to play for 40 minutes, and we haven’t done at any point in time this year."
(On whether or not he sensed the team would have a slow start)
"I didn’t think we competed. I think the one guy who at least acted like he wasn’t afraid to get at it and compete was Kwe (Parker). I thought when he came in the game, he went in and rebounded the ball. You can look at the numbers. We had 20 offensive rebounds. They turned it over 20 times. It was our execution. We didn’t adjust very well. They are an excellent ball-screening team. We didn’t adjust well. We came out of the timeout in the first half and switched to zone and one player wasn’t in the zone—and we had talked about changing our coverage. When guys aren’t engaging like that, you have to ask the question: Is it stage fright? What is it? Why aren’t they thinking and doing the things that we know we need to be doing? We were really awful at the start of the game. We came back. But when (Gonzaga) needed to get a basket, I thought they executed really well. And that’s what I told our team. When they got ahead in the game, they knew exactly what they were looking for. There were times when we came down and we would run something and forced shots that we didn’t have to force. That’s just guys still not understanding how you win a basketball game."
(On Gonzaga’s size inside)
"I don’t have a problem with guys driving it. I had a problem with guys doing things that they had never done before. Trying to turn and shoot over guys and then you can’t get off the ground. That is a problem. You have to know if you have an angle to do that. You have to be willing to fight for space and attack. They don’t block a lot of shots. You look at it today, they blocked four shots. We showed that to our team, they haven’t blocked a lot of shots this year. They’re a good defensive team. They do a good job of staying in front of the ball. They rebound the ball. I think they are an excellent defensive-rebounding team. We’re still not there. The reason I think they are good defensively is because they finish that possession by rebounding the ball. They weren’t a team that you have to worry about blocking shots. They protect the ball well with their bodies. They stay in great position, even though we got 20 offensive rebounds. I think they do a tremendous job. We didn’t help ourselves at the free-throw line today. We’ve done a great job from there for the most part this year. But when you are struggling like we were today, you need a portion of those."
(On Tennessee’s guard play)
"Our guard play is not consistent. I think Kwe (Parker) is doing as good a job as much as anybody. I wish he had not been hurt (at the start of the season), because I think he is starting to figure it out. I thought Lamonté (Turner) tried harder today than I have ever seen him try defensively. I think he really tried. And that’s the reason he hasn’t played. I think he was getting the idea that if he made shots he can play, and he can’t unless he really tries to work at it. I thought he really did try to work at it today, but we still have to get more consistent play from our guards—defensively more than anything. We need to improve there."
(On what he saw out of Admiral Schofield)
"He’s still not a 100 percent. You can tell that he is still a little gimpy. He’s trying, but he’s a guy who needs those reps in practice. Again, I think he is trying, but he is still not 100 percent."
(On if being close in these games is beneficial to the team)
"That was my conversation with them last night. I said if we were playing horseshoes, we would be a pretty good team, but we’re not. And I told them that’s not where we want to be. We still have a chance with this team to do some really special things. I believe that. I really believe. But I am going to go in there after a game like this and tell it like it is, like I’m telling you. I thought Kwe Parker played his heart out. I thought Detrick (Mostella) played his heart out. We have to have everyone playing their heart out. Lew (Evans) was 1-for-8. Shembari (Phillips) was 1-for-7 in 13 minutes, and he’s supposed to be running the team. He had two turnovers. I think where the youth shows up is guys start feeling good about themselves. They think, 'I am there. I have a little more leeway.' There’s no leeway yet. There is never enough leeway when you’re not winning the way we want to win. We need everybody. That’s what we talked about. We need everybody on edge for 40 minutes. We could be the talk of college basketball if we had won against Oregon, at North Carolina, if we had given ourselves a better chance here today. You have to give Oregon, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Gonzaga the credit. They are good teams. They found a way to beat us. We haven’t found a way yet to beat them. That’s what we have to figure out. We can talk about size. We can talk about a lot of different things. I’m a big believer in—and I’ve told you guys this before—after every game, were going to show them on the tape how we could have won this game. Showing them is one thing, but they have to go do it. I thought our coaching staff did a great job, as they have all year. We just haven’t gotten it to the level that we have to compete on both ends."
(On Kyle Alexander’s play)
"I told him all we need him to do is what John Fulkerson did for us. If you look at their numbers, they are pretty close. There is one difference. We need Kyle to be more energized. He does give us more of a shot-blocker than John could. That’s one thing Kyle can do. We need him offensively to be a factor getting on the offensive boards. He has to screen better. He’s the one guy who takes too long to get into our flow game where he is just wandering around out there. We know he can do it. Kyle’s too good of a shooter. He fumbled one today and took a bad shot. He’s too good of a shooter to be shooting what he is from the free-throw line."
(On Jordan Bowden’s growth)
"I told him, now you know what it is like when you get the reputation as a pretty good player—people game plan for you. This is where you decide; you can get better or stay where you are. As the season goes on, the intensity starts to climb. Are you going to do that? Are you going to learn to work harder without the ball? Are you going to learn to use your teammates to get open? You’re going to have to learn to get set up quicker. If I were playing us, I would give him some attention. People are doing that obviously."
Tennessee guard Robert Hubbs III
(On the loss and what needs to change)
"It’s tough. It’s frustrating. We’ve got to just find a way to come out with a strong bang. We need to play harder and defend the ball. We came out with no energy, and I take full responsibility."
(On the lack of first-half energy for a big game)
"In a game like this we should be coming out swinging, and I don’t know why there was no energy—starting with me."
(On Gonzaga pressuring him)
"We had other guys that were hot. When somebody else is hot you have got to get the ball to them. Detrick (Mostella) was on fire, and Lamonté (Turner) started hitting shots. Kwe (Parker) was defending well and getting to the rim. That’s really it."
(On looking at video from big games)
"In basketball, one or two plays make the difference in a game. We didn’t get stops and they just won the game."
(On the difficulty of dealing with Gonzaga’s height)
"You just have to adjust. They are big, and you have got to try to put as many fouls on them as possible. We did a little bit tonight. We just need to be more aggressive from the get-go."
(On the next couple of games after four-game week)
"We really need to take care of our bodies for these next couple of days. We have a huge game (Thursday) at ETSU. We need to get focused, take care of our bodies and come to work."
Tennessee guard Lamonte Turner
(On being close in games like this)
"It definitely isn’t enough. We don’t practice every day to come out here and be close. It was disappointing tonight. We gave them an early lead and had to play catch up the rest of the game."
(On the start of the game)
"We didn’t come out with energy. We weren’t aggressive on defense. We gave up a lot of easy baskets. We had some turnovers that we shouldn’t have had."
(On a lack of energy)
"I’m not really sure why we didn’t have energy. We talked about coming out and bringing energy on the defensive end, being ready, and we didn’t (do it)."
(On Gonzaga’s size)
"We were ready for their size. We weren’t physical enough from boxing out and giving up rebounds. We just didn’t come out with energy."
(On the experience gained by facing four top-20 teams already)
"I think it’s definitely been a good experience. You want to come out and play the best teams in the country and I think we have. Like I said, we don’t play this game or practice every day to come close. It’s disappointing to lose even though they’re a top-10 team in the country. I think we could be better if we came out better."
Gonzaga head coach Mark Few
(On team’s response to Tennessee’s run)
"I was really proud of them. There was a lot of stuff that wasn’t going our way. They’re a team coached by a guy I respect tremendously. He’s a tough and competitive guy. We knew they would make a run. I thought we got a little out-of-sorts on both offense and defense. Down the stretch though, we took care of the ball, got good shots, made free throws and then we were able to do what we do best, which is string together good first-shot defense where we got some rebounds."
(On handling travel and conditions)
"We traveled a long way. I thought they did good. Especially the way we started in the first half. Usually when you come out of finals like this you’re a little bit concerned of losing rhythm like this because we had a pretty good rhythm going into finals. I gave them several days off so I was a little worried about that. They responded and were clicking pretty good in the first half. Again, coming into a hostile environment and surviving that; we had some serious foul trouble. Being able to survive that and have some guys play with four fouls with extended minutes is a good sign."
(On the foul trouble)
"I think we got through it. Last year, Josh Perkins wouldn’t have been able to play with seven minutes and four fouls. Obviously, I thought Nigel (Williams-Goss) did a nice job; he understands that. I was really proud of our two young bigs who were really frustrated with how the game was going with some of the calls and plays. Down the stretch, they both made several big plays. Killian Tillie had a big offensive rebound, two free throws and guarded really well down the stretch. Zach Collins had some free throws after some very aggressive post attacks."
(On defending Tennessee guard Robert Hubbs III)
"Jordan Mathews did a really nice job on him. We were in the gaps trying to help on him. We really dedicated a lot of bodies to him early because he has been playing really well. He has a knack for hitting really contested two’s. It wasn’t just one, guy but I thought Jordan was in the right spots and battled him pretty well. We brought in our big also, which was pretty key."
(On depth and foul trouble)
"It’s huge. I think we need to develop a couple of more guys. Jeremy Jones is getting healthier with his ankle and hopefully with this break we can get Rui (Hachimura) a bunch of reps and into practice so we can bring him into situations like this. The depth is huge. The fact that we can bring those two freshmen bigs in and finish games is big because they both can shoot free throws really well."
