Tennessee shows 'all the ingredients of a Final Four team' in win over Texas

Rodney Terry sat next to Rick Barnes on the Texas bench for nine years. There was a Final Four run, Sweet Sixteen runs, Elite Eight runs and a lot of wins along the way. 

“The only thing we didn’t do during that stretch,” Terry, the acting head coach at Texas, said this week, “was win a national championship.”

If there’s anyone that knows what Barnes is looking for, it’s him. 

Terry saw enough from this fourth-ranked Tennessee in the 82-71 win over No. 10 Texas on Saturday night at Thompson-Boling Arena in the Big 12-SEC Challenge. He knows how far the Vols can go.

“I think I said earlier in the year,” Terry said after the game, “I thought that they were a team that had a chance to be a Final Four team.”

Zakai Zeigler, Olivier Nkamhoua combined for 49 points in win over Texas

Sophomore point guard Zakai Zeigler had 22 points and 10 assists and senior forward Olivier Nkamhoua had 27 points and seven rebounds, powering the Vols in a game in which they led for nearly 35 minutes and by as much as 22.

Texas went to the Final Four in 2003, the only one for Barnes as a head coach to date. The Longhorns were in the Sweet Sixteen two years later and an Elite Eight two years after that, and then again two years later.

“The Final Four run was incredible,” Terry said. “That was a team that could’ve won a national championship.”

So could the one that had Lamarcus Aldridge, PJ Tucker and Daniel Gibson, a team that won 31 games but lost in the regional final against LSU.

“We were loaded on that team,” Terry said. “That was a really, really good team.”

What Terry saw in those Texas teams is what he sees in this Tennessee team — talent, toughness, physicality, veterans.

“They got a lot of experience,” Terry said. “They’re older. He’s got guys that can play inside, a number of guys that can play physical. We had physical guys that can rebound (at Texas). We always had guys that can shoot the ball. We also had a really good point guard, T.J. Ford. National player of the year. So that was pretty good as well.

“But he’s got a point guard that is playing really well,” Terry continued, referencing Zeigler, “that’s a really good player as well. They have all the ingredients of a Final Four team.”

Zeigler over Tennessee’s last four games, since a disappointing home loss to Kentucky two weeks ago, has 69 points, 31 assists and 13 rebounds, shooting 52.2 percent from the field and 38.7 percent from the 3-point line. Nkamhoua took what Barnes called the best practice of his career on Friday and turned it into a career-high 27 points on Saturday, going 12-for-15 from the field.

What Barnes has seen from his team so far is one that has played well through January. But that’s it. To be more, the Vols have one important question to answer.

“Right now, I love this team,” Barnes said during his postgame press conference . “We’ve got a chance to be as good as we want to be. I think that it’s up to one thing. Are we tough enough to embrace the daily grind? Not worry about going to the Final Four, not worry about the NCAA Tournament. But can we build a team that can be successful that time of year.”

Up Next: No. 4 Tennessee at Florida, Wednesday, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN2

Barnes referenced a stat he heard earlier Saturday from ESPN’s Jay Bilas. North Carolina, he said, had the same record entering the weekend as it did a year ago, before going on a run to the national championship game.

He referenced Kansas losing by 28 to Kentucky in last season’s Big 12-SEC Challenge, then going on a run to win the title. And No. 2 Alabama’s 93-69 loss at Oklahoma on Saturday, too.  

His Tennessee team has to worry about the road game at Florida on Wednesday, the home date with Auburn on Saturday, and every moment in between as the calendar turns to February.

“It starts with truly embracing the grind every single day,” Barnes said, “and it’s tough because we’ve been at it a long time. Can you knock out all of the noise around you? Can you let whatever is out there, the noise, talk about it and just be able to come to work.”

It starts, Barnes told his team, with “a man’s mentality.” 

“In the fact that when we come in here and we get ready for games, it’s not about being emotional and jacked up,” Barnes said. “It’s about taking care of business and knowing that it’s hard to win games against the University of Texas. And now I think we go to Florida next week. 

“It’s hard. It’s only going to get harder because in February, teams get better. That’s why have to get better.”