Tennessee assistant coach Rod Clark previews Tennessee's game at LSU

Everything Tennessee assistant coach Rod Clark said Monday morning before practice, looking back at the 77-69 win at Texas A&M on Saturday and previewing Tuesday night’s game at LSU:

If there’s a correlation between Tennessee shooting well at Texas A&M after getting a midweek bye last week

“Yeah, I think any time you have some time to get legs up under you and you get some time to rest, obviously it helps with your shooting from week to week. But if you look, you know, before that we were shooting the ball pretty well going into the break, and then just to come out and have a performance like that, obviously is really inspiring. But it was more so, I think, it was great for the guys just to get their legs up under them, get a little bit of rest, get some time, more than physical, to get a little mental and emotional relief from having that time off and go out and have an outing like that.”

How big it was for Jordan Gainey to hit big shots late at Texas A&M 

“It was big because he had some open shots in the first half that he didn’t connect on. And I think everybody knows by now how reliant we are on his consistent production. We need him to score the ball, we need him to be aggressive when he comes off the bench. So it was great, him coming off and making those shots. Obviously they were super timely and we needed them, so we were excited to see that. We need him to continue that, honestly, especially as we get into this last stretch, SEC play. But it was big. It just was big for all our guys that have a performance like that.” 

How Chaz Lanier has adjusted during SEC play

“He’s done a really good job of adjusting and, you know, coach said it the other day, I think he’s seen every defense that you could see. He’s been taken out, he’s been held, grabbed. It’s funny, every game we always talk about like him having to tuck in his jersey three, four times because he’s pulled every time he comes off a screen or anything. But he’s been adjusting and doing a good job fighting through contact, understanding he has to give a little bit of aggression when it comes to driving to the rim. Obviously he had that left-hand dunk going to the rim the other day, which was obviously a big surprise to all of us, but it we know he can do it though. We’ve seen him do it. Just need him to consistently do it. But it was good to see him have a night like that.”

The importance of Jahmai Mashack’s two put-backs for Tennessee in the win at Texas A&M

“The first thing I said to Coach when we got back off the floor, back in the locker room, I said the two biggest plays were his tip-ins. And our staff, we all agreed. Those were huge. Those were his two baskets. But that’s why, you know, we see the stuff, not all of us, I see some of the stuff on social media where guys (are saying) our best lineups are this and Jahmai Mashack does this offensively and all this other stuff. And I get it, like analytics can say a lot of things, but when you’re in the heat of the battle and you’re in these games, to say that we’re better when Jahmai Mashack is not on the floor is kind of — I hate to use this word — but stupid. It just kind of is. We finished the game with four guards on the floor and we were playing a massive, huge team. And he’s at the four and we’re just fine defensively. And he’s on the floor obviously to win the game. So, not to insult anybody that has their opinions, because it’s nothing wrong with that, but yeah, that’s not accurate.”

Tennessee losing at Kentucky after not executing in the closing minutes, then playing so well in the final eight minutes at Texas A&M

“You know, we have an older team, really mature guys. They care. I think that’s a a big thing with any teams. You want guys that care, but they’re all really competitive, right? And so we’ve had some times where we haven’t been able to finish off some close games, and obviously it hurt. But guys learn from it. I say with this group, man, I think we’re around them so much and we’re together so much and we’ve been through all these wars and all these games and you forget that they’ve really only been playing basketball together for about five months, honestly, as far as games. So they’re learning how to go through battles with each other. You know, last year’s group was a group of guys that had been together for years and went through a lot of wars together, whereas this group is trying to find continuity with each other. And the only way that you build character to get through those tough games is being in those tough games. So now’s the time of year that you hope guys can learn from the Vanderbilt games and the Kentucky games and some of those games that we kind of let get away late. You want see the habits come out, right?

“And that’s what we were able to do the other night against Texas A&M. And it was good to see man. I thought our guys, they showed how tough they are. It was like one of those vintage tough guy wins that we’ve had. It felt like kind of on the road at Illinois. We just made those tougher plays at the end of the game and we made some really big shots obviously. So that was great to see it and we hope it continues.”

How much Tennessee’s Igor Milicic calf is bothering him

“I think he’s all right. He seems like he’s been progressing, getting through it. He’s been getting treatment, but it’s not bothering too bad.”

What the key is to get him back on track like he was before the Vanderbilt game

“Yeah, he’s just got to lock in defensively, pay attention to detail a little bit better. I think Igor’s had a couple breakdowns early in games. Some things we went over defensively, but like I said to him yesterday, it’s not a lack of care. It’s like Igor cares too much, right? He cares a lot and emotionally he can get riled up because he really wants to do well for his team and he’s an ultimate teammate. He’s really good about trying to get locked in before the game and making sure that he’s doing the right things. But sometimes I think he can kind of like, he can kind of just overwork himself to where he’s overthinking and trying to help this guy here and then breaking down here. So we just got to get him calmed down and understanding that everybody has a job to do. We know that he wants to do his job at the highest level, but he doesn’t have to be the guy that makes the play all the time. His teammate will make the play for him to make sure he’s in the best position as possible too. So he’s learning that and he’s getting better, man. He’s been great.”

On what’s been different about LSU the last few weeks

“I mean, last game Florida came out and really took it to him. Kind of punched them in the mouth early and then they responded with a 22-2 run. And usually I think that’s a testament to Coach McMahon and his staff. Usually at this time of year when you know you have a record like they have and guys find a reason to not play for anything because  it’s not a lot that they really have right, that they could play for right now. But to see them go on a 22-2 run against a team like Florida, it just shows that they still have a lot of fight and they want to play good basketball, they want to be a competitive team. So this is not a game that we’re walking into thinking that it is just gonna be a walk in the park and they just going to lay down. Like we understand that they’re still here to play basketball. They still want to be a force, they want to be respected in the league, right? As all teams do. You just saw that from South Carolina this past weekend. Like they have every reason in the world to give up right now and they still haven’t. So it’s not any situation we can walk into and feel like we’re just going to walk out there, show up and we’re going to win a game. So we don’t have that approach. We respect those guys. We expect them to give us a really good fight. We expect us to give them a really good fight.”

What stands out about LSU’s Robbert Miller

“We recruited Robert for a little bit. Robert’s a really good player. He’s about 6-foot-9 really good hands. He’s long, he’s an athletic, super talented kid. He comes from a really good family.Robert’s a really good player. He’s somebody we’re definitely focused on. Obviously he had a really good outing last game, so it’s going to be a lot of attention put on him. And when you’re a freshman in this league and you have attention getting put on you from one of the best defenses in the country, that’s a testament to the work he’s put in and how good he’s been.”

What they want to see as coaches the next two weeks before the postseason

“We need to see, obviously, we want to get better with the start of games. Understand how to come out with the right approach. Having the same aggression early in halves that we do late in halves. We want to kind of start putting those things together. We want to be locked in defensively and put together full games. Right, now is the time of year where just having good halves is not really good enough because if you go into the wrong game, just have one good half. It could get you sent home as we keep going for these couple weeks.

“Just putting full games together, being locked in, attention to detail (with) scouting reports, you know, confidence and guys playing faster when it comes to shooting the ball offensively. Thought we did a good job of that the other night and really just continuing to get better. Because this is that time of year man, like everybody, you’re either getting better or you’re getting worse. Right now, I feel like everybody can agree we’re getting better. We just gotta continue on that path, make sure we keep going forward.”

How much of Tennessee’s success in the second half is Zakai Zeigler flipping the switch and bringing the rest of the team with him

“He’s been doing a good job of it. I hope he starts flipping the switch before the game starts. That’d be good too. It’d probably make it a little bit easier for us early in games. He’s been doing a good job, man. He’s tough, obviously. When he’s playing good basketball, we are usually playing good basketball.

“I jokingly, but I was kind of being serious the other day, I was like, ‘hey, you know, instead of you guys like taking turns, having piggyback rides off of each other and just somebody carrying the team, why don’t we just all do it at the same time?’ So hopefully we can do that. I guess it’s like easier said than done, but you know, hopefully we keep building towards that and getting better”

How good the midweek bye last week was for the coaching staff

“It was good to refresh. Honestly, like I said, even for the guys, it’s not so much the physical load when you talk about getting a break in the middle of the year. It’s really the mental and the emotional. When you get done with a game on Saturday, like we just got done with a game on Saturday, right? Your attention and your brain immediately goes to the next team that you have to play within 72 hours. So you don’t get to, ‘oh, we finished this game, now I can relax.’ It’s never really like that. It’s like, okay now we gotta get on to the next thing. So it was just good being able to play Vanderbilt and then knowing that we didn’t really have to worry about anything for the next couple days and you get to go recruiting obviously.

“Took a trip out to (California) to go recruiting and then was able to take a little drive up to go see Dalton (Knecht) play one of his games with the Lakers. So that was cool to see. It’s good to see any of our former guys when they’re kind of living out their dreams and going forward being pros. So that was cool. He gave me one of his game jerseys, so I appreciate that. I’ll put that in a frame as long as my daughter doesn’t wear it as a dress.”

What Kansas State transfer Cam Carter is doing differently this year at LSU to improve his numbers

“I think he’s just as aggressive. I think he’s just older and learning how to take his shots, get to his spots, and then obviously he’s playing in an offense that really is predicated towards letting him play a lot of ball screens and play freely and play with a faster pace. So Cam Carter is, I mean, the last three years, he’s been one of the better scorers in college basketball. He’s a really effective player. Obviously he plays with a lot of aggression, can really get to the rim, can really shoot the ball. So if you look at his numbers and as a scorer in the SEC, they’re super efficient, which is impressive because as talented as these guys are, it’s actually really hard to be efficient as a leading scorer in this league because you’re number one on the scouting report. You know, everybody knows that you’re a guy that’s gonna get the ball, you’re a guy that’s gonna take shots. So the fact that he’s been able to be efficient and be effective is pretty impressive.

“So we’re definitely going into this game, understanding he’s a guy that we have to contain and make things tough on him. And that’s our plan. We wanna make things as tough as we can on him and hopefully we come out on top at the end of the night.”