Rick Barnes proud of the way Tennessee 'stuck together' after loss at Florida
Tennessee didn’t just lose its first game Tuesday night. The Vols got beat by 30 points at Florida, embarrassed on a night when they couldn’t make a shot on the offensive end and couldn’t get a stop on the defensive end.
The Vols needed a response Saturday night. They needed a confidence-saving win at Texas.
“That’s the thought,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said during his postgame press conference Saturday night, “obviously, (when) you get beat as badly as we did.”
Tennessee’s response was rallying in the closing minutes for a 74-70 win over Texas at the Moody Center in Austin, with Zakai Zeigler and Darlinstone Dubar helping the Vols erase a five-point deficit with nine minutes left.
Zeigler and Dubar combined for 22 points, seven rebounds and five assists in the second half, a different kind of win to cap a very different week.
Rick Barnes: Vols ‘had a great week of preparation coming in’ to Texas game
After a perfect 14-0 start to the season and a No. 1 ranking the last five weeks, the Vols were humbled in the loss at Florida on Tuesday.
Their schedule changed two days later, when inclement weather headed for Knoxville had Tennessee on a plane to Austin on Thursday evening, instead of traveling the day before the game.
“Just proud of the way that they stuck together,” Barnes said of his players. “They had a great week of preparation coming in. We got out of rhythm a little bit. We had to come in a day early. The airlines brought us in and it feels like we’ve been here a long time, to be honest with you because we’re normally just in and out.
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“But we got in and first time in I bet 25 years that we practiced on the other team’s practice facility and we don’t do that. But we had to do it.”
Up Next: Tennessee vs. Georgia, Wednesday, 8 p.m. ET
Tennessee won at Texas despite getting just 10 points from Chaz Lanier, who struggled in both games last week. He had 10 points at Florida, too, combining to go 6-for-27 from the field over the two games.
Zeigler finished with 16 points, eight assists and three rebounds at Texas. Dubar had 12 points and six rebounds and Jordan Gainey scored another 12 off the bench. Igor Milicic had seven points and six rebounds and Felix Okpara had seven points and a team-high nine boards.
Tennessee (15-1, 2-1 SEC) returns home to host Georgia (14-2, 2-1) on Wednesday (8 p.m. Eastern Time, SEC Network) and are back on the road at Vanderbilt on Saturday.
“If you’d have told me in July,” Barnes said, “I couldn’t have said we would do what we they’ve done to this point. But we’ve had different guys. We’re down to what, nine scholarship players and two of them aren’t at 100 percent like a lot of teams have right now.”
