Tennessee associate head coach Justin Gainey looks back at exhibition wins

Tennessee basketball associate head coach Justin Gainey met with reporters Thursday afternoon before practice at Pratt Pavilion, looking back at the exhibition wins over Michigan State and Lenoir-Rhyne and updating the progress of the Vols before the regular-season gets started:

What Tennessee coaches saw on film from the Lenoir-Rhyne exhibition

“I felt like guys, I thought from the beginning, the approach was where it needed to be. You saw guys take steps in areas where we talked about on film and I thought some of the young guys that came in, they came in with the right mindset, came in to guard and they did a lot lot of really good things on the defensive side and the offensive side involved. But mainly that the defensive side is where the attention was placed.”

Tennessee wanting to play faster offensively without giving up anything on the defensive end

“Yeah, that’s the challenge, right? Because it’s gonna be a lot more possessions, or hopefully more possessions, and the defense is gonna be spread out a little bit more, I think. And then we have to rely on our depth to help us maintain that intensity. So telling guys, hey, two minutes first, two hard minutes first, and now you’re out and we get somebody else in and we just kind of keep rotating. But I do think that will be the challenge, to maintain that intensity with the pace on the offensive end, and a lot more threes are going up, so you got longer rebounds. All of that stuff will factor into it. 

Having Santiago Vescovi back with the team and going through Tennessee’s practice on Thursday

“We didn’t practice yesterday, so today will be his first day back to practice, but I don’t anticipate, I mean, this is year five for Santi and he’s on autopilot right now, like from a sense of he knows what to do, what to expect, what the standard is. So expect it to seamlessly know flow in his transition.”

The transition for Dalton Knecht and Jordan Gainey when Tennessee gets Santiago Vescovi and Zakai Zeigler back on the floor

“I think the advantage to having such a deep team is hopefully they don’t change their approach. They continue to be aggressive on that side of the ball and be confident and obviously they to continue defensively to grow and to continue to come in that direction. But I hope there’s no adjustment for them that they continue to bring it at that level, Santi and ‘Z’ bringing it at their level, and I think that’s the recipe for the team that we all hope to see that has big time success in the regular season and afterwards. 

How much fun it has been having his son, Jordan Gainey, at Tennessee with him

“It’s been fun when I have a chance to kind of sit back and look at it, but you know, when you’re in the mix and you’re in it every single day, there is a level of emotion, a level of anxiety that comes with it as a parent through different processes of growth. You don’t always have to witness it. And especially in athletics, a lot of times you have other coaches that they have to struggle through and have to work through and have the good times through as well. But when you are the coach and you are dad, you go through all the growing pains and all the excitement. So needless to say, it’s been an emotional rollercoaster for me, but it’s been fun.”

The difference in working in transfers like Dalton Knecht and Jordan Gainey who’s played at a major college basketball program as opposed to a freshman

“For an older guy like those two guys, they’ve been through the fire. They’ve been through college basketball, and there’s nothing you can do to simulate it. The thing I would say about Dalton and Jordan coming from where they’re coming from, it’s probably not a lot they haven’t seen. I know people talk about the level and this and that, but on the flip side, I would say it’s not a lot of guys that’s been game-planned for the way those two guys probably were game-planned for. They’ve seen box-in-ones, they’ve seen every defense you can think of to take them completely out of a game because where they came from, they were so important to the success of that team. And so, I think that that’s prepared them, I think that’s hardened them and I think to an an extent, they’re relieved to have more help around them to take some of that off.

“I think with a freshman, you can’t simulate preseason from high school to college. You can’t simulate the game-planning that goes on at the college level when you compare it to the offense. It’s something you have to go through, it’s something you have to experience regardless of how good of a basketball program you come from. There’s always going to be that learning curve. And so that is what I would say the main difference is, and that’s no knock on high school coaching, coaches or whatever. It’s just different. It’s the level of preparation, the resources, all all of those things factored in makes it a much different transition.”

How he’s seen Dalton Knecht’s defense evolve and get better

“I’ve seen a sense of his desire, the care factor on that side of the ball has grown, and the understanding of how important it is to not only to himself, but to his teammates. Everybody’s counting on him. And so when he blows a defensive coverage in practice, somebody’s gonna hold him accountable. Somebody’s gonna say something to him. And I don’t know if he’s ever felt that, dealt with that before. And he’s not a selfish guy. He’s not a selfish player. And so the toughest thing I think for all athletes is when your peers, when your teammates are confronting you on certain things, and so when that happens, it takes your level of attention in whatever area it is they’re correcting you on to a whole nother level. I think he has embraced that. He hasn’t pointed fingers. He understands that’s where he’s gotta get better and to his credit, he’s worked on it and he’s been better.”

Rick Barnes talking over the summer about needing to find out how to get Freddie Dilione more fired up and if that is still an ongoing search with him

“All guys are different. His demeanor is different. The thing you love about him, he never gets too high. He never gets too low. Sometimes I think you would like to see him a little more — especially that position — a little more fiery. I thought we saw a glimpse of that in the Michigan State game where I think the guy tried to take the ball out from him and it sparked him a little bit. And so I think for him understanding that maybe it’s not for me that, for him, that he has to, show that emotion sometimes, but it also shows, gives the team confidence and that you’re playing, you’re at a certain level from intensity standpoint, and so it’s something we’ll work with him. Again, it’s his human nature to be kind of even keel. But that’s obviously another area where we’ll continue to grow.”

If there was a point after Michigan State where he was able to sit back and enjoy Jordan’s success

“Yeah. You know, as you watch film, you kind of get to enjoy it, right? You enjoy it. And he drove me crazy and at the free throw line and then that last free throw, I couldn’t even watch it. I was in dad mode on that last free throw. But, yeah, I did. It was good to see him have some success, but the coach in me knows that there’s more, and there’s some areas that we’ve talked about and we are continuing to work on with him to continue to develop.”

If there’s an update with Tennessee junior point guard Zakai Zeigler

“I don’t know. I hadn’t talked to Chad today, so I’m not sure. We’ll see. I anticipate him to be in practice today and doing kind of what he normally does so we’ll see.”