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What Rick Barnes said after No. 4 Tennessee's 70-52 win at Oklahoma

IMG_3593by:Grant Ramey•about 10 hours•

GrantRamey

Rick Barnes, Tennessee Basketball | Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images
(Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images) Feb 8, 2025; Norman, Oklahoma, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes watches his team play against the Oklahoma Sooners during the second half at Lloyd Noble Center.

Everything Rick Barnes said after No. 4 Tennessee blitzed Oklahoma 70-52 Saturday afternoon at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman:

Tennessee’s defensive performance, holding Oklahoma to a season-low 52 points

“Well, that’s what we’ve tried to be all year. We’ve always felt that’s what our program was built on. I thought we had great rim protection today. Not only with the block shots, we had a couple great verticality plays at the rim that turned out well for us. And we knew coming in, beause again, the respect that we have for personally for Porter (Moser) and what he has done in his career and, obviously coming up here a lot when I was at Texas, this program and what he’s doing here. And I thought our guys really focused hard. We talked a lot about personnel obviously, but that’s kind of what we’ve done all year. 

“And then we made shots early. We really put together two — the second half of the Missouri game then here today — maybe two of our best halves offensively all year. And we were able to make shots, which it always goes well when you’re doing that.

“And start of the second half, they did what we thought they (would) and really put pressure on the rim. And we picked up five fouls in less than four minutes. The last six minutes wasn’t great. We turned it over. They turned us over some and we turned ourselves over too much. But overall we just had a good day.”

Tennessee making shots on the road early in the game 

“Yeah, I mean, we got some guys that can make (shots). I mean, certainly Chaz has proven he can make some shots. I thought at the end he actually had some better looks and he missed where the ones earlier were contested. I mean, it’s, it’s a crazy game sometimes. I mean, it really is. But I thought that Zakai has been really good the last couple games, where he’s really managed the game well for us. He’s looking for guys when he get going in certain areas. But again, when you’re making shots, it looks good even if you’re not playing well. And the fact that I thought we were locked in defensively and started making those shots again, the first half was pretty special.”

Tennessee having the size advantage against Oklahoma and how much of a difference that made in the game 

“It does. Rim protection is huge. And what else? Our size, they can play away from the basket. We can switch. Our guys have gotten pretty good at, when we do get switched and rolled in, we’ll get a kick out where somebody will come in and maybe get Zakai out of there real quick. And I thought we did it because they are really well coached in ball screens. We talked at length about how well they do it and how they can pop out some too. But how important it is for our post guys to get their hands up there at the point of contact. And we did a good job of that today. Because they really do a great job and a couple times they got us and we were able to clean it up at the rim, where that size comes back. And the speed, our post guys all move quickly. And where they’ve all improved better is the fact that they can switch out. And when teams screen us and we get clipped, we’ve got some guys that can fix it for us.”

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