Rick Barnes says Tennessee players focus on winning over performance

Tennessee coach Rick Barnes has plenty of options to turn to on any given night. That happened to be senior guard Dalton Knecht in Tuesday evening’s 85-66 victory against Florida.

Knecht poured in 39 points (13-of-23 FG) in the victory, marking his second straight game with 30-plus. He has now scored 103 points in the past three games, the most for any Volunteers player in the past 25 years.

However, Knecht’s explosion has resulted in lesser roles for some Tennessee players of late. Zakai Ziegler took only two shots against the Gators while Josiah-Jordan James attempted just three. One might think that could be frustrating for some players.

But the Vols aren’t focused on individual performance, according to Barnes.

“I’m not surprised because I know the guys are about winning,” he said. “I think there are teams that probably came into the game thinking that we want to make Zakai do everything and I think that there are more than just one option. We still haven’t got everybody playing at the level that we know we’ve seen ’em play sometimes.

“Josiah, Jahmai (Mashack), these older guys they want to win and they wanna play well. There’s no doubt about it. To be honest with you, I was oblivious about Dalton getting 40 points. They were trying to get it for ’em.”

Balance is nothing new for Rick Barnes’ Tennessee teams. Last season the Vols had six players who averaged at least eight points per game and their leading scorer, Santiago Vescovi, averaged just 12.5.

Vescovi has taken somewhat of a step back with the addition of Knecht, who arrived as a transfer from Northern Colorado this offseason. Knecht now leads the team with 18.5 points per game while Vescovi’s numbers are down to 7.4. He’s also averaging four less shot attempts per game.

The increased depth has made Tennessee a better overall offensive teams, though. The Vols are scoring 79.1 points per game this year compared to 70.8 in 2022-23. More importantly, they rank No. 6 in the country with a 13-4 (3-1 SEC) record.

Barnes gushed about the unselfishness of both Vescovi and James and their team-first mentality. He knows they’ll have their days as well.

“Those two guys are two of the most unselfish people I’ve been around in my life,” he said. “They’re happy for (Knecht). They get it. Believe me, they’ve embraced him. They want to win. There’s gonna be nights where they can go off, too. You can go back a couple of weeks ago, Josiah has been our most consistent player all year, including Dalton. Josiah was the one. We’ve got an unselfish team. We really do. …A lot of players might be upset with that, but I can assure you Santi and Jo, they’re not. They want him to do it because they want to win.

“They’re gonna go out as some of the winningest players here at Tennessee. Defensively, they work so hard to try to help Dalton. They want him on the court, but they also know late games, you’ve gotta be able to do it on both ends. …The job that those guys do coaching these guys that are new to this is phenomenal. They’re happy for him and most of all, they’re happy that we’re winning.”

Next up for the Vols is a matchup against Alabama, which ranks first in the SEC with a 4-0 conference record. Tip off for that game is set for 2 p.m. ET on Saturday in Knoxville.