Everything Rick Barnes said after No. 1 Tennessee's 75-62 win over Miami

NEW YORK — Everything Rick Barnes said after No. 1 Tennessee‘s 75-62 win over Miami in the Jimmy V Classic Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden:

On Zakai Zeigler 

“I wouldn’t trade it for anybody. I remember seeing him the last week of summer evaluation when he was a senior in high school. And he had had a great week at the Peach Jam. And we thought with Kennedy Chandler coming in, we thought we would maybe do something we hadn’t really done, try to get a point guard that we can redshirt. And he had a great week and he came in and, I can tell you after a week, we thought we should redshirt Kennedy. And I will tell you that Kennedy would tell you that Zakai was probably one of the greatest things that ever happened to him.

“Zakai, he’s been incredible. His DNA, how he’s impacted our program is unlike many players can ever do. And I’m just happy that we’re able to get him back here to New York, being his senior year. because I know he knows what The Garden is about. He knows it’s a stage instead of court. And just getting him back here is really special for him.”

Zakai Zeigler staying loyal to Tennessee the last four years

“He’s as loyal as any person I’ve ever been around. I don’t know if there’s a more beloved Volunteer than him. A couple years ago when his family lost everything they owned up here on fire, within a matter of 30-some hours, Vol Nation raised $350,000 and could’ve done more, but the NCAA shut it down. He’s never forgotten that. And he’s beloved. Everybody knows what time he goes to ChickFil-A every night. They know all that. But his career and what he’s done for this program is really second to none.”

What went well when Tennessee built the lead to 18 points, then what went wrong went Miami cut it to seven

“They’re 37th-rated (in) offensive efficiency. We knew they could shoot it. They came out shooting the ball a little bit better than they had been. But give them credit for that. They do run good offense. But I didn’t think that we were detail-oriented to start the game. The last eight minutes of the (first) half, we went with a smaller lineup. We started doing what we normally do and we got the lead. And when you get a lead and start getting casual, turnovers, taking quick shots, it can get away from you real quick. But one thing good, before this we haven’t been in a situation where we had to respond. They cut it to seven. And one good thing about the last part of the second half is that we did respond from a run, which is something we’re going to have to be able to do a lot more, obviously. But give them credit too. They started making some shots. We broke down a couple times with defensive transition, which we can’t allow that. We can’t. We weren’t as good as we have to be defensively, but again, they’re a difficult team to guard.”

Tennessee handling the No. 1 ranking this week

“We talked about it last night. I said, hey, you should embrace it. We didn’t start out the season saying where we were going to be ranked. And we moved up because the teams in front of us lost. We move up. We lose, somebody’s going to move up here and all that. But I said, while you’re there, you guys have a chance to play as the No. 1 team in the country tonight and we should embrace it. And if you embrace it, you look forward to the challenge that’s coming your way. Because with college basketball, everybody building for the NCAA Tournament, everybody is building resumes. But if we are who we think we are and who we want to be, you embrace it. You say we expect your best shot. They’re going to give it to us. We’re going to get it at Illinois this weekend. I thought, again, Miami played really well.

“It is what it is. But, like Z says, we’ve got goals for the end of the year, but you can learn from it. I was really pleased with the fact that, what he said — you guys were in practice, you saw it. We went about business as usual and prepared the same way, and we expect people to raise their level of play, which means we have to, which is a good thing. We always believe that iron sharpens iron. And we know we’re in the best league in the country, and we’re gonna be in a lot of games. We’re as close. And so learning how to handle outside distractions is a big thing. And the fact that we — nobody has higher expectations for us than us. I mean, we have the best fans in the country, and a ranking and all that, but we wanna play perfect, and they know that. We try to practice like that daily, and it’s hard, but they go about their business. We were down to eight scholarship players tonight. I thought early, the tempo helped us a lot, and then got a little sloppy. But, I thought they handled all that well.”

If there was a concerted effort over the final eight minutes for Tennessee to get Chaz Lanier more involved

“Chaz has gotta get himself involved. I mean, we’re gonna run some things for him. He’s gonna have to work with more force coming off, but when he gives the ball up, he can’t stand. He’s gonna have to learn to screen, move without the ball, and it’s on him to do it. Because we’ve talked about it now for six months, seven months. That’s  where we’re excited about him, because we think he can get so much better. One thing I do know, his teammates are looking for it. If he just stands where a guy can pretty much shadow him, they can’t get the window to get it to him. So it’s a matter of him understanding, but to his defense, this is all new to him. I mean, he’s never dealt with what he’s dealing with right now, and you have to give him an A+ for what he’s done up to this point. But for him to go where I know he wants to go, if he’ll do what I think he will do, he will continue to add to his game, which he’s gonna have to, because people aren’t just gonna let him stand and catch the ball and shoot it.”

How he can give someone an A+ grade, but then also say there is still so much more they need to do

“Because I don’t think he had a clue what he was getting into. You don’t, coming from where he was, and he played for a terrific program at North Florida, and then coming here and having some of the nights he’s had and the way he’s being gameplan for with different guys — I mean, different sized guys. I’m sure he’s played against more length here in our nine games overall than he has at any point. He also has — I don’t know how people guarded him so much at that level, but again, dealing with him, (Jahmai) Mashack everyday in practice, because we say this is how you’re going to be guarded. And it’s hard to do that because, one, he’s very unselfish. He’s a really unselfish guy. I can tell Z is looking for him often, like Z and Cade (Phillips) have learned to look for each other on those lobs, and it’s just something that is exciting because he can get so much better.”

Zakai Zeigler

His journey to Tennessee

“It’s been a tough journey, but no matter what, my mom always told me to be a fighter and never give up. And everything’s part of God’s plan. So all the ups and downs in life, no matter what, I’m just thankful to be in position I’m in today.”

Tennessee being ranked No. 1 in defensive efficiency, winning all nine games by double-digits and executing game plans 

“Just the work we put in every day. Every day we come in with the mindset to get better. And even though we got ranked No. 1 in the country, honestly, you walk in the locker room and you wouldn’t have thought that. Everybody came in. We had little smirks on our faces. We were happy about it, but we know the end goal. But I’ll just say our work that we put in every day, we take our work very serious. We take practice very serious. Take our individual (work) very serious, weight training, everything. So I would just say really work we put in every day.”

Saying there were smirks on the faces of Tennessee when they saw they were ranked No. 1, if they were smirks of satisfaction

“Honestly, we just noticed that the bullseye on our back got bigger. The work we put in everyday, we want everybody to have their A-game, and play their best game against us. So once we knew we were number one, now we’re really gonna get everybody’s best shot. So, you know, we’re duckin’ no smoke, we’re ducking no competition, and we do that every day. Like, we go at it every day like we don’t know each other in practice. So once we see that number one ranking, it’s just like, ‘oh, yeah, now it’s really on.’ And we know we got a ways to go. We know we got places that we can get better and improve on. It’s nothing to be too, too excited about.”

What it meant to him to play inside of Madison Square Garden after the last time he came as a sophomore, when he was a few weeks removed from tearing his ACL

“I remember the game and it was pretty tough to watch, honestly. You know, I’m a sore loser, I’m going to be honest. But, you know, being able to come back here and finally get a win; my freshman year, we didn’t get a win here, sophomore year we didn’t get a win here, so being able to come back here and get a win in front of a lot of hometown friends, family, you know, my grandmother’s here, some people that haven’t got to see my teammates play since high school maybe. So, you know, it was really meaningful for me, honestly, being able to get that win today and see everybody out there. But, you know, going back to my sophomore year, just being on the sideline and watching, I did definitely have some memories, especially like just walking onto the court, I remember my head like, the last time I was here, I was on a scooter, rolling around. Just being able to walk that hallway, being able to warm up, every moment out there just meant something to me.”