Tennessee Basketball: Rick Barnes updates the health of Vols
Tennessee basketball is still not “totally healthy” after playing shorthanded last week due to both injury and illness. Head coach Rick Barnes said before practice on Monday that the Vols still have “some guys a little bit under the weather.”
“I think most teams go through it at some point in time,” Barnes said. “A lot maybe this time of year. But the fact is, we’ve got some guys that, when they’re down, we’ve been fortunate to have some guys take advantage of that opportunity.”
The Vols, who moved up to No. 4 in the Associated Press Top 25 on Monday, picked up two road wins last week, 70-59 at Mississippi State on Tuesday and 77-56 at LSU on Saturday.
Vols missed players due to illness in two road wins last week
Senior guards Santiago Vescovi (shoulder) and Tyreke Key (illness) didn’t play against Mississippi State. Zakai Zeigler scored a career-high 24 points and freshman wing Julian Phillips had 18 points and 11 rebounds to help rally Tennessee from down nine points in the first half.
Senior center Uros Plavsic didn’t play at LSU due to illness, while both Vescovi and Key returned. Vescovi scored six points and Key had 10 points and a season-high seven rebounds. Senior Josiah-Jordan James scored a season-high 22 points.
Barnes said after the game that Vescovi was feeling sick at LSU, despite playing 31 minutes.
Tennessee (16-3, 6-1 SEC) hosts Georgia (13-6, 3-3) on Wednesday, a 7 p.m. Eastern Time start on SEC Network. The Vols host No. 10 Texas on Saturday in the Big 12-SEC Challenge.
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“We’re looking forward to everybody getting healthy so we can get going and get some rhythm back where we want to be,” Barnes said on Monday. “I said it the other day, I’m really proud of our guys. We had some guys that were really under the weather and they fought through it. Really gave us everything they could.
“We’ve got a couple guys, I think, out today. But maybe by tomorrow we can get a good report.”
Up Next: No. 4 Tennessee vs. Georgia, Wednesday, 7 p.m. ET, SEC Network
Georgia, in its first season under former Florida coach Mike White, started the season 11-4, including a home win over Auburn to start the SEC schedule, but have lost two in a row and three of the last five.
Kentucky beat Georgia at Rupp Arena on Tuesday. Vanderbilt won at Georgia on Saturday.
“Mike is going to win wherever he goes,” Barnes said. “He’s a terrific coach. He did a terrific job at Florida and he’ll do a terrific job at Georgia. Mike’s teams, defensively, they’re going to guard you. They’re going to make you work on every possession and being the coach that he is, he’ll find a way to do what he needs to do with his team offensively.
“(He’s) a guy that continues to tweak throughout, he’ll do that, but they’re going to play hard, they’re going to be aggressive and anything that is fundamentally to go with this game, his teams are going to be really good at it.”
