Rick Barnes says small-ball lineup planned before team-wide illness

There has been a little bit of a bug going around Tennessee the last few days.

Tyreke Key missed Wednesday’s victory over Mississippi State with an illness while Uros Plavsic missed out Saturday for the Volunteers blowout win over LSU. Santi Vescovi and Julian Phillips also weren’t feeling 100% but did play in the game.

All of the players dealing with illness forced Rick Barnes to scrap the small-ball lineup he was planning on using for the LSU game.

“Yeah, we had made up our minds the last two days,” Barnes said. “We had tried to go with it. First of all, I’m really proud of our guys. We have a bunch of guys under the weather right now. Santi (Vescovi) was not feeling good. Did very little in practice yesterday and tried. Julian (Phillips) wasn’t feeling great. Obviously got some other guys, Uros, other guys that haven’t felt well. Really proud of them for the way they came in and fought through it.”

Despite the illnesses, the Volunteers played a very high-level game of basketball in their 77-56 victory.

Tennessee held LSU to only 33.3% shooting and 26.7% from beyond the arc. The team defense also forced 19 turnovers leading to 33 points.

“I thought it was good,” Barnes said. “Early in the game I didn’t think we had any physical presence inside, the way we need it with that lineup when we should still be able to do it. We certainly got guys that can shoot the ball at all five positions. Defensively, for the most part, did a pretty good job when we got the lead. The last 10 minutes of the game, they pretty much just drove the ball at us and we didn’t do the best of jobs that we need to do.”

Rick Barnes praises team for persevering despite dealing with illness

While Tennessee has been off to a great start to SEC play and has now won two games, the team-wide illness and injuries have made it a more difficult road for Rick Barnes and his crew.

The level which they have been playing at has been very impressive for Barnes.

“I’m proud of these guys, I really am,” Barnes said. “Simply because we haven’t been able to do a lot of what we like to do in practice with it…What I told these guys, we’re a good basketball team right now, but we’ve got to get a lot better. Whatever we need to do, we need to all get better. Coaches have to get better, players have to get better, because there’s a lot of basketball left. We can’t stay pat where we’re at right now.”