Tennessee Basketball: Rick Barnes 'preaching' to Tyreke Key to keep shooting

Tennessee couldn’t get the ball to Tyreke Key fast enough Saturday in the second half against Missouri. And the graduate-transfer shooting guard couldn’t get enough shots. He just kept getting open. He just kept hitting shots.

That’s the version of the Key the Vols have to get more of, more consistently.

“I thought he missed some shots early,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said before practice on Monday, “but kept that thing loaded and kept shooting and that’s what we needed him to do. And doing it in a lot of different ways.”

Key scored a season-high 23 points to lead the Vols back from a 17-point deficit with 17 minutes left against Missouri. The 21 points he scored in the second half alone would’ve been enough to be a new season high.

He was 5-for-7 from the 3-point line and 6-for-6 at the foul line after halftime. 

“I think (it was) just coming out and knowing we kind of needed a spark,” Key said after the game. “Just being more aggressive. I’ve been working on it the last couple weeks in practice and gaining more confidence.”

Key lit up Gonzaga in an exhibition game in October in Texas, scoring a game-high 26 points on 8-for-12 shooting from the field .He was 4-for-7 from the 3-point line and 6-for-7 at the foul line. 

The stats didn’t follow him to the games that count, though. At least not consistently. 

He had 32 points over the first two games of the season, against Tennessee Tech and Colorado, but reached double figures just four times over his next 15 games. 

Key had 10 points and seven rebounds in the win at LSU on January 21, but then just eight over the next four games, including a scoreless 12 minutes in the loss at Florida. 

Tyreke Key’s last two games: 37 points, 12-25 FG, 7-13 3FG

He had 14 at Vanderbilt Wednesday with a more aggressive approach on the offensive end, setting a season-high with 12 shots from the field. He shot 13 times on Saturday against Missouri, going a season-best 5-for-9 at the 3-point line. 

“Coach preaches to me to take shots when I’m open,” Key said of Barnes, “and he’s been preaching that. I just got to keep being aggressive. That’s the reason they brought me here, to shoot, so I just have to take the shots when they’re open.”

Barnes said as much himself on Monday.

“He’s got to shoot it,” Barnes said. “I tell these guys, if they don’t take open shots they’re never going to get in rhythm. They’ve got to get some rhythm going and even if they miss a few of them — and the key is when you do miss them you still have to be willing to take your open shots. 

“You can’t stop and once you stop you start turning down shots and other people sense it and other teams do, certainly, and it can affect your team. We just need our guys, when they get the looks we want them to get, they have to take it.”

He’ll be leaned on just as heavily when No. 10 Tennessee (19-6, 8-4 SEC) hosts No. 1 Alabama (22-3, 12-0) on Wednesday (7 p.m. Eastern Time; TV: ESPN2) inside a sold-out Thompson-Boling Arena.

Senior wing Josiah-Jordan James (ankle) and freshman wing Julian Phillips (hip) will be game-time decisions. James missed the Missouri game and Phillips didn’t play in the second half. 

Key for the season is averaging 8.8 points and 2.8 rebounds in 24.2 minutes per game. He’s shooting 36.1 percent from the field and 36.8 percent form the 3-point line. 

Up Next: No. 10 Tennessee vs. No. 1 Alabama, Wednesday, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN2

His teammates are telling him the same thing the head coach keeps preaching. Shoot the basketball. 

“We tell him he has the green light,” sophomore center Jonas Aidoo said. “Just let it fly every time he touches it … in practice, he is getting them up. We tell him to do the same thing in the game.”

What the Vols saw from Key in the second half against Missouri is what they have to keep seeing from him. 

“This is what we know he can do and we know that he’s important to us,” sophomore wing Jahmai Mashack said. “So is everybody on the team. You can’t describe how he was during that game and we were just trying to feed him the ball, just trying to create offense to get us going. 

“But he does what he’s been working on his whole life and it just comes natural to him. I’m glad he’s playing the way that he’s playing and he’s going to continue to play like that.”