Rick Barnes not surprised by big game from Josiah-Jordan James in win over Kentucky

The Tennessee Volunteers got a big win over the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday night. A big part of that win, as head coach Rick Barnes knows, came down to the play of Josiah-Jordan James.

After the game, Barnes praised James, as well as the rest of the team, for stepping up in a big game.

“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,” Rick Barnes said. “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.”

Josiah-Jordan James, along with Zakai Zeigler, was one of two Volunteers to have more than 20 points in the win. James finished the game with 26 points, five rebounds, and an assist.

“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,” Barnes said. “And I said we’re not going to do that. And I told those guys, simple, we want you to do what we do.”

In the end, Tennessee won the game 103-92. It was a big one in the SEC regular season race. The win boosted Tennessee to 6-2 on the season in conference play while Kentucky fell to just 5-4. With that, the Volunteers moved into fourth in the conference standings.

“And a great performance for our guys tonight against, you guys know how much respect I have for John and his program and his players, and we knew they were going be a really difficult team to guard. You knew they could get going. I thought up until tonight I was the best player to ever come out of Hickory. But that got blown up tonight. [Rob] Dillingham was phenomenal. He was phenomenal. But it was just a great team win for us. I thought Zakai and everyone we got, talk about it, I thought Tobe [Awaka’s] minutes were really important at a time when they were just really hit us hard on the glass,” Barnes said.

“But, am I surprised with Josiah? I mean, we’ve been through so much with those guys and I’m not surprised because of our older guys. Our experience I thought was really, really important tonight.” 

Next, Rick Barnes and Tennessee will try and continue their success with a home game against LSU.

Rick Barnes reveals what changed for Zakai Zeigler vs. Kentucky

After the game, Rick Barnes also broke down what changed for Zakai Zeigler against Kentucky.

“I told him that I thought he had to change his demeanor. I think he’s one of the best point guards in the country. But I told him, and the whole team at some point in time, ‘I can’t be the only guy getting on guys.’ You’ve got to do that because I am relentless in terms of details and those type of things. We can’t be a team that when we’re down saying to each other, ‘We’re good, we’re good’ when it’s not good. We’ve got to be transparent and [the team was] at practice yesterday,” Barnes said.

“The last two days, he did a great job where he took it on himself. He said, ‘Hey, I’m the guy that’s supposed to be driving this car, and I’m going to make sure that guys are doing what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it and not, I’m going to let them know about it.’ So tonight I thought he went through a stretch a little bit where he was trying to do a little bit too much. Overall, I thought he was terrific.”