What Rick Barnes said after Tennessee beat South Carolina to win SEC championship

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Everything head coach Rick Barnes said after No. 4 Tennessee beat No. 17 South Carolina 66-59 Wednesday night at Colonial Life Arena to clinch the SEC regular-season championship:

What it means for this Tennessee team to win an SEC regular-season championship

“Well, obviously I’m extremely proud, but I’m so blessed. The good Lord has blessed me with a group of guys that I think anybody in the country would want to coach. And these guys, from the time that we got back in the summer before we went on our foreign trip, we talked about with Santi and Josiah especially, who’s been through so much, they were five years here and they’ve done such an incredible job leading along with Zakai. 

“But first of all, that was an unbelievable college basketball game. Two teams I thought just fought their hearts out. And I can’t say enough about us coming in here winning because the job at Lamont (Paris) has done here. I mean, it’s amazing really the turnaround that he put here. And his team, for them to go into the last week of the season with a chance to play for an SEC regular-season title speaks volumes. Terrific players, but what he’s done is something to that he should be commended for. And I don’t think there’s any question — I told him this and I believe it — if I had a vote, I’d vote him national coach of the year because this year is, I can’t imagine the SEC ever being any better than it is this year. And for him to do what he did is quite remarkable.” 

Being the first person to leave the court after the game, letting Tennessee players celebrate the title 

“Well, I don’t know. That’s a good question. Other than that’s what I normally do. Game is over, shake hands, walk to the locker room. But just honestly when I was walking back, just for the guys, I mean, I just know how hard these guys have worked and putting up with me every day. And especially Jo and Santi for five years. And hadn’t always been good. And I think they both did. There was times they probably hated me. But the fact is there is a special bond with this group of guys. Mary-Carter (Eggert) said to me before the game, she said, you know, coach this team of guys, they really love each other. And I was thinking about some of those things.

“But again, I also thought about, you know, again, Lamont, I’ve been there too. And again, I just think he’s done a great job and I looked at his players, I shook their hands, I looked at them, I know how badly they wanted it and that’s how hard it is to win a regular-season championship at any level. But just proud of the way we’ve been able to go up to this point. 

“We’ve got one more game, but it was exactly the kind of game we thought it would be. 

I thought both teams really defended the other one well and really was about 10 minutes to go. That’s why we went with our older guys. We felt like we were going have to put it on our defense and other than in fact they were just putting their head down, just driving so hard to the basket, trying to get fouled. Give Meechie (Johnson) credit for that because he’s such a hard guy to guard when he gets going to his right.” 

Tennessee winning three straight games against ranked teams, with two being on road games, to clinch the SEC title

“I told her guys we could use this in a way to prepare us for the future because every team in our league really, we had to go on the road at Missouri and didn’t have a great night that night and found a way to win. And then came home and I think it was what A&M and then Auburn, I think, and the last one, Alabama. And we knew that from the time that we were going finish the season really playing against every team that would be in the NCAA Tournament. So we knew it was going to be hard, but we looked at it, we said, we got to embrace it because we can learn a lot about ourselves and see if we can continue to get better. And start forming the right mindset (for the) postseason. But we knew it was going to be hard because of the respect again that we have for our opponents and the coaches in this league. And again, I can’t imagine that the SEC’s ever had a better basketball league with the teams that are in it right now. And great, great coaches in this league and some great really great young coaches.

“But just proud of our guys because we were able to win the regular season and something they they wanted to do and just proud of that. And it’s just truly a blessing that were all able to be a part of it.”

How much Tennessee talked about winning the SEC Championship before the season

“Well, it was a goal that, our guys said it. I mean, there’s no doubt that’s what they wanted to do. And, we again, knew it would be hard, but it started long before today like it did with South Carolina. It’s a group of guys that came together. It’s something that they wanted to do. And when we lost early we lost on the road to I think a really good Mississippi State team and (then we) came home and they (South Carolina) beat us but I think we’ve learned from every game I do. I think we’ve learned something from every game and I also got to credit our younger guys because what they’ve been able to do is they’ve continued to get better, which has helped our older guys. It’s been fun watching our older guys tell those guys that, ‘Hey, we need you guys to go at us every day.’ And you guys watch practice, you see it but it’s been a complete team, program championship because there’s so many people that are involved with it that no one knows about. That has a lot to do with our guys being able to get on the court and do what they do. And again, it is just a true blessing to be around these guys in this program and I just thank the Good Lord for the opportunity I have had here at Tennessee.”

Where this Tennessee team has improved the most since the start of SEC play

“I think that being in games like this, it seems like they’ve all been tough, (and) hard, certainly the last couple weeks. But understanding each other more. And the one thing we don’t want to do is totally rely on Dalton and I thought maybe the biggest play of the game was Zakai’s three. I thought that was a huge play at the time and certainly his (Dalton’s) four point play was big, but I told the coaches, we’re relying on him a little bit too much and they’re really good defensive team, excellent defensive team when you try to isolate. They do a great job. They do a terrific job of staying in front of the ball and they do a good job of getting into the gap, yet they do a good job of recovering back but I would say there’s a lot of different areas, but I think maybe the biggest one is each guy sort to understanding what he has to do to help his team be the best it can be as individuals.”

Where Dalton Knecht’s performance compares to his best from this season

“Well, the one thing about Dalton, he’s not afraid. He’s not. He’s not, he’s got a real short memory and he’s very confident. He thinks he can score. He thinks every shot he shoots is gonna go in. And so he’s a guy that I do think the guys feed off of him. I think he does give them confidence, but I did tell Z(akai), I said, ‘Hey, you got to get busy right here’ because I felt like we were just putting too much on him (Dalton). And when they start talking, we talked about it last game, Santi in the huddle, when those guys are really talking to each other and communicating the way they have been over the last couple weeks, you know you’ve got a good thing going but Dalton’s tough and again, he’s fearless and he’s not afraid of the moment so it’s a good weapon to have.”

What Josiah-Jordan James and Santiago Vescovi have meant to the Tennessee program

“Well, again, it’s hard to talk about Santi without talking about Josiah because Grant (Williams) was back there with me just a little bit ago and, you know, his group had set a pretty good standard for us and was really the foundation of where we have been able to move the program. But that year in between (2019-2020) when we had some, probably the most adversity that we had since we started at Tennessee, and Santi and Josiah carried it. They have done more probably off the court than they have on the court in terms of they’re both very unselfish and they both are high-level competitors. They really want to win above everything else. 

“For them to, people have asked me a number of times this year, did I ever worry about them being seniors and Dalton coming in and them deferring to him. They embraced him from the time that he came on campus and it’s been documented about he and (Jahmai Mashack) going at it. And they told me long before we started gearing it up for the year, what (Knecht) could do and you could tell their excitement, but those two guys do so much that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet. Fix-it plays, winning plays.

“We’ve been together five years. They mean a lot to me and I’m gonna miss ’em because they make me look good at times when they know I’m frustrated with some things and they have a way of saying coach we got it. Because they know me better than anybody, but again, it’s a blessing for me to have both of those guys for five years.”

Making South Carolina uncomfortable in its own gym, holding Gamecocks to 24 points in the first half

“Defensively, that’s where it all starts. It always ends with us. Lamont does some really good things. He will run a few concepts and then they’ll try to grind you and put you in a long possession and he puts his guys — they did a great job of, we knew we didn’t want to switch as much as we did in Knoxville because they did a great job of taking advantage of those switches up there and I thought we did a better job with our post defense here than we did up there. But, you know, I thought we defended their sets pretty well, but then again, they went to the high-ball screen and we were caught in between. Up there, we were spread out too much here. Here, we were somewhere in (between). Early, we were tight. And then I think as the game went on and they were shooting threes, I don’t know if they want to normally shoot that many or not, but then we’re thinking, well, they’re gonna make some here or there, which they did at the end. And we did have one mistake at the end when we Santi came in and over helped a little bit. But it is all a team-oriented defense. I mean, we’re not asking any one guy to do anything, but, you know, we do try to take pride in guard the ball on-on-one, but everything we do is about how can we help each other and fix plays.”

How much Jonas Aidoo’s development helped Tennessee win the SEC Championship

“Well, Jonas has been a huge part of it. You know, we all obviously love what he gives for us, but we want more. I told he and Tobe (Awaka), they gotta finish some of those shots for us because it takes so much pressure off the perimeter guys if we can do that. But it’s what Jonas, again, around the rim his length is a major factor for us on the defensive end. And Jonas can score the ball. He really can. And we just want him to be aggressive, but we wouldn’t be here today without Jonas. We wouldn’t be here without Tobe, we wouldn’t be here without any of ’em. I mean, every guy on this team has played a role that’s helped us get here. And every one of those guys that have played the main minutes have won games for us in different ways. But like I thought the other night at Alabama, Jahmai Mashack was the difference in the game. And so it’s been like that this year with different guys stepping up at different times, which is what we love about this team. And I think that’s the respect they all have for each other.”