Rick Barnes details the importance that other players stepped up around Dalton Knecht

The Tennessee Volunteers and head coach Rick Barnes got a huge win over the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday. It was a win that they were able to get without the best performance from star Dalton Knecht.

After the game, Barnes detailed the importance of having other players step up to perform around Knecht.

“I don’t even know why we got to that point,” Rick Barnes said. “We haven’t been that kind of team and I mean, obviously he [Knecht] can go do it. And there’s some games, and will be some other games this year, where he’ll do some of that.”

This season, Dalton Knecht has been averaging 19.9 points per game. He had 16 points against Kentucky but wasn’t the primary scorer against Kentucky, with Josiah-Jordan James and Zakai Zeigler both scoring 26.

“But again, I also think Kentucky did a nice job guarding, and as the season goes on, he’s going to have to deal with that. I thought that John [Calipari] had a great game plan to make him guard as much as he possibly could. And they, he did a good job getting him in some mismatches that they wanted. And all this is new to him [Knecht]. And as he continues to grow like he already has, he’s got a chance to get so much better,” Barnes said.

“But what I think he also more than anything is that his teammates, they believe in him, but they also want him to continue to get better like they get better, and he will because he’s a worker.”

Rick Barnes not surprised by big game from Josiah-Jordan James

One of the players who Rick Barnes was happy to see step up was Josiah-Jordan James. At the same time, his performance wasn’t a surprise for Barnes.

“I don’t know that you expect anything other than he’s been a huge part of this program from the time he walked on campus. And what I love about him, and I’ve said it before, when Jordan [Gainey] was going through a little bit of a slump, he struggled in practice. But the last two days, we’ve had some really good work in practice. And Josiah got back to getting aggressive,” Barnes said.

“And what we told the guys is that we’re not going to sit around and watch Dalton [Knecht] do it. We’ve got too many good players and I said we’re not going to do that. And I told those guys, simple, we want you to do what we do.”