What Rick Barnes said after No. 8 Tennessee's 64-44 shorthanded win over No. 5 Florida

What Rick Barnes said after No. 8 Tennessee rallied without Zakai Zeigler and Igor Milicic to beat No. 5 Florida 64-44 Saturday afternoon at Food City Center:

Tennessee players rallying without Zakai Zeigler and Igor Milicic

“Well, you know, I can go back to the Kentucky game when they lost the key guy (point guard Lamont Butler) and those things can happen. Basketball is a crazy game. But all tell is we didn’t talk about any of it. Yesterday we came into practice, did what we had to do. And I thought the guys really focused on that, the game plan that guys that played today. Igor wasn’t with us yesterday and Zakai obviously wasn’t with us. And when they gathered at the circle to get done, Jahmai Mashack looked at everyone and said, ‘Hey, we got enough right here. We got enough right here to get done what we need to get done if we’ll stick together, carry out the game plan, do what we’re talking about here.’ And I’m as proud of these guys as any team since I’ve been here because of the way that they prepared for it and believe that they knew they could go out and get a win.” 

The injury status for Tennessee point guard Zakai Zeigler (right knee)

“He did get an MRI last night and it showed no structural damage. But Chad (Newman) will tell you, I tell him every day you don’t have to give me a medical report. I don’t care. I’m going to coach who’s out here. I don’t look at it. And I said, you come out and tell me something, I’ll listen to you, but whoever is out here, we’re going to try to get ready to play. And I know that if Zakai could have gone, he would have. Igor came in today, he did everything he could to get enough fluid in him. He fully wanted to try (to play) and he couldn’t. 

“And I think the way we handled it with those guys, we talk about once you get into conference play, you’re going to have some up and downs. You’re going to hit some bumps in the road. You don’t know what they are, but you expect them. And that’s how we respond to them. And we talked about it last night. This is a chance to respond to a tough situation. Everybody panicked because we weren’t making shots. And like I said, we’ve lost four games to four really good teams. And won a game against an outstanding team, a team had a beat us about 30 a month ago. 

“And I thought that Chris Walker during his power talk this morning was awesome. He just said that I hope you guys know it’s a blessing to have a chance to play in this game today as it is for me to coach the game. So we went about our prep and I think our guys focused and did what we needed to do to win a game today.”

His message to Jordan Gainey as Tennessee’s point guard going into the game

“Stay out of foul trouble. The coaches early talked about maybe being aggressive. And I said, no, we can’t double, trap the ball screen. I said not early, we can’t afford (to get in foul trouble). Start of the game, everybody’s on edge, referees, everybody. And I don’t want anybody to get any early fouls. And Felix (Okpara) picked up two early ones there. But that was it. We knew what we had to do. Knew we were going to save our timeouts, especially for the last 10 minutes in case we had to use them to rest Jordan, Shack (Jahmai Mashack). We knew those guys could play a lot of minutes, but really proud of him and really proud of his cardio toughness.

“And I thought Chaz did something that we’ve been asking him to do. He got some separation where those guys could screen for him. He got his speed set, he got some great looks at it. And the ball was delivered on time. And I thought when we called some things tonight, which we were putting in some longer possessions, the execution coming out at halftime was good. And then we got a back cut that we wanted. We got a lob. And again, give guys credit for executing.” 

Tennessee holding Florida to just 44 points, difference in last two meetings

“Well I think you go back to the stat sheet from that game and the stat sheet from this game. I think it, I don’t have my glasses on here, but I think that probably the number you’d look at would be points in the paint. What is it? What did we get today? What was the difference? (34-14). Guarantee it was the same thing down there in their favor, but if you look at this stat sheet, that stat sheet, that’s probably the number that jumps out because they had their away with us down there and did whatever he wanted to do and beat us in there like (and) I thought our big guys responded today, came back and tried to fight. I thought even when our guards were posted up down here, I thought they put up a fight as best they could. They’re a really good team. They got great balance, does a great job with them, but again, just really proud of the focus that our players had today.”

What the game said about Tennessee’s toughness

“Well I think it says a lot about our team, our program and our players. I mean, you guys know that we’ve tried to build the program on defense and we’ve lost four games, three of them we did not play defense at the level we needed to and didn’t shoot the ball well and that compounds it. But when we’re there locked in and we’re in the league with some really good, I mean, Florida’s outstanding offensive team. Kentucky, is an outstanding offensive team. Auburn, all of them, you name them. Everybody in our league can do it. For us to do that. I mean, I thought we knew it was going to be a real battle on the boards with the length and we got a lot of guys in there trying to go after the ball but that’s who we really are. You guys know that. We’ve struggled offensively at times. Our defensive has kept us in every game, pretty much this year. We needed a great performance today and we got it.”

How satisfying it is for Tennessee to win a game with elite defense like that

“That’s a great question because I told them it was one of the great wins that we’ve ever had here because of, you think about the guys that were out there today. We had Bishop on the floor, Cade and I just loved the way they handled the moment. I thought Cade was really energized today doing a lot of good things. I think Felix in the second half was terrific, but just really proud of them because a lot of them hadn’t been in a game like this at that level. For them, to do it, again, we could talk for an hour about Jordan and I thought his cardio toughness really showed up today, but to win a game when you got two starters out, everyone knows, but you know  a game like this and I really felt, and I told the coaches this — win or lose this game’s going to help us because guys that, maybe it’s my fault that I haven’t put them in situations where we can really, really truly see what they can do today. Today we had to. I thought Dstone responded well. Cade, and it’s only going to make us better if we take advantage of it. From a coaching staff standpoint, this was a special one because of the way we were beaten down there and then came back with two starters out and played the way we did.”

That being as impressive as a win they’ve had this season, Felix Okpara’s play inside

“I thought a big play was when Shack threw to him in(side) from the corner and he made that shot. I thought that was a big play for him and we were talking about 45 threes after the Kentucky game and 33 of them were uncontested, but it still doesn’t mean that our post guys can’t touch the ball. For us to continue to grow. You guys get tired of me saying about getting better every day. We’ve got to get more balanced. The only way we’re going to do that is give the ball to those post guys and if Felix gets his position and they’re not going to make all their shots, they’re not.

“But if you look at them, they shoot a pretty good percentage. I thought Jahmai was really good today. How many shots did he take? (4-of-10). I thought he was aggressive putting the ball where he needed to and that’s what we need. I don’t want us to be a team that stands around and depends on Zakai, or depends on Chaz to do it. We got guys that can do some things, and we just need them to show us they can do it consistently, and that’s how we can grow. But we need Felix. We need Cade. Those guys (need to) get some touches in there.”

How much they focused on how many minutes each player would play before the game given they didn’t have Zakai Zeigler or Igor Milicic available

“Well, I’m probably the worst at that, because I’m like all players. I want them (minutes) all. I want to play 40 minutes. I wasn’t very good. I did well to get two, but the fact is, with the timeouts. I have TV timeouts. We know our guys so well. The biggest concern going in, and we had even talked about maybe, if we get in foul trouble, do we go to zone a little bit. Whether people know it or not, we do have a zone. We just haven’t used it but maybe once or twice. You know, show and go situations.

“But the biggest thing was staying out of foul trouble. And we knew last game, I thought they did a really good job last game with our ball screen action, hitting our guards. Our post guys did a much better job with their ball screen. And then they were getting it. Then they went through a period when they got some of those step outs. They made a great adjustment to it, but the biggest concern was taking care of the ball. And we knew they would go to their little three-quarter court pressure. I thought that helped us a little bit, to be quite frank, because we got some looks out of it. But going into the game, we didn’t know. We knew that we would have to use everybody, and we weren’t sure. We were just hoping we wouldn’t get in foul trouble.”

Jahmai Mashack’s leadership on defense

“Well, you know, he had a great day. I mean, this same group of guys lit us up down there. We responded as a team. That’s what competitors do. You know, you can’t always come out on the good side of it, from your standpoint, but a competitor is going to fight back. And, you know, we only played, what, three teams twice this year, and that’s why some of these games there’s no redo. That’s why I tell our guys we can’t have off nights defensively. 

“But Jahmai has won a lot of games in a lot of ways here. He impacts winning, and I do like it when he was aggressive driving the ball today. We actually put something in for him to do that. And, you know, they were trying to keep him from getting to his right, and he handled that pretty well.”

Zakiai Zeigler standing up the entire game like a coach

“It’s a great thing to have, because if you’re at walkthrough, they talk about it. Like, we were talking about some of their actions they run. He is not afraid to say, ‘I think we need to do this.’ But the best part about it is, his teammates trust him. He’s engaged. He could be a coach. He certainly can coach our system. He understands what we’re looking for.

“Jahmai is a high-level competitor. That’s an incredible talent. He’s got great, incredible cardio toughness. He’s a guy that, he could go out and play another probably 25, 30 minutes, the way he just finished that up. But it’s great when you have someone like that, and especially when a guy that’s been with him for four years, Zakai’s not playing. I do think he took it on himself to even take it to a higher level.”