What Olivier Nkamhoua, Zakai Zeigler said after No. 4 Tennessee's win over No. 10 Texas

Everything Zakai Zeigler and Olivier Nkamhoua said after combining for 49 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds in No. 4 Tennessee’s 82-71 win over No. 10 Texas on Saturday in the Big 12-SEC Challenge at Thompson-Boling Arena. Zeigler recorded his second double-double over his last three games, going for 22 points and 10 assists, and Nkamhoua scored a career-high 27 points to go with seven rebounds and three assists.

Sophomore Point Guard Zakai Zeigler

If that was what the Tennessee offense can look like at its best

“Definitely. I feel like that wasn’t even our best offensive performance. We can do much better. We can play much faster. We can get the ball inside even more and I give credit to Olivier. Once we got it to him, he went to work and we need to do that all of the time. But I would say we can be even better offensively.”

What it meant for Rick Barnes to get a win over Texas

“It meant a lot because last year it was very emotional in the locker room after the game because of the outcome, but this one was definitely a big one for him. It meant a lot to us, too.”

Scoring eight straight points on his own after committing a turnover

“I always have the next play mentality. In that case, I knew it was a pretty bad turnover, but I was just thinking ahead. It’s going to be a game of runs and it’s going to be some ups and downs, so just keep playing and be myself and don’t dwell on that one turnover. That’s all I was thinking.”

Having a double-double for the third time this season

“I would just say it’s a good feel for the game because I didn’t know that’s what the box score said until after the game. Somebody had came up to me and said it. But I would just say it was a good feel for the game and knowing just to take my open shots and hit the open guy. It was just a feel for the game.”

The edge this Tennessee team has been playing with

“It’s been something we’ve been trying to develop. We have talked about it in the locker room, developing our character and developing who we want to be known as around the country and what type of team we are. We always want to be the type of team that everybody says we are going to play the hardest. We are going to fight. No matter what the score is. No matter what we are up. We are going to give our all. We are going to play with a lot of emotions. We are definitely still building our character as a team.”

The performance from Olivier Nkamhoua

“Well, coming into the game he had some really good practices and we knew that Olivier was going to be that go-to guy early on because of the type of practices he had was just amazing whether he was getting the ball, whether it was defensively. He was just really active and coming into the game, he was that same exact player. Nothing changed. Nothing at all. He was just great overall and I give him all my flowers to him. He was really great out there.”

Managing the ESPN GameDay experience Saturday morning before a big game

“It was all business. It was no type of pressure at all because whether College Gameday was here or whether they weren’t, it was going to be this type of fight no matter what. We knew going into the game how important it was, so I would say it was all business and there was no type of pressure.”

His relationship with Oliver Nkamhoua and Tennessee using the pick-and-roll against Texas

“Well, I have a great relationship with Olivier off the court. It doesn’t matter, we could be eating food and we’ll just start talking about basketball and like, ‘hey, you can hit me on this and just know on this, I’m going to start running to the basket. You can trust me.’ It started at that point, off the court. And then we just got closer and closer, and on the court, I know if I throw it up, he’ll go get it. Or if I try to make a special pass or if it’s a bad pass, he’ll make the extra effort to go get it. I know because of the relationship off the court he’ll make the effort for me on the court.”

How this Tennessee team plays hard and how much of that comes from Rick Barnes

“A lot of it does, but a lot of it just comes from us. The type of relationship that we all have off the court, we truly are a brotherhood off the court. We do pretty much everything together. If we’re all hanging out with each other and one guy doesn’t come to hang out, we get mad at them and say, ‘hey, you have to come hang out with us.’ So, I think it always starts off the court and the type of brotherhood we have.”

The physicality Tennessee played with

“We’re big on playing like grown men. That’s what’s going around the locker room a lot. That we just gotta be out there and be grown men. We can’t let anybody out-physical us and that was one of the key points for us to win this game and to win many more games. That we have to be men out there and be ourself. Don’t let anybody run us off cuts, run through our chest, anything like that.”

Getting switched to guarding a forward on defense

“It’s definitely a matchup I want. I wouldn’t say there’s any matchup on the floor I wouldn’t want to get into, but no matter who it is that I’m guarding, that’s how I look at it.”

Texas scoring more than Tennessee usually gives up, but also being held under its own scoring average

“We’re definitely not okay with that. We know we’re not perfect and we still have — people say we’re a pretty good defensive team, but we know we have many points we have to get better at and tonight, even though we won and we had some really good plays, we know that we had some really bad plays that we need to fix.”

His reaction to the Olivier Nkamhoua dunk in practice on Friday

“Man, I lost my mind. I remember seeing it. I was on the court. He drove, he gather his feet and all I can say is that I’m scared for anybody that is under his rim when he gathers his feet. That’s all I can say.”

Senior Forward Olivier Nkamhoua

The dunk in practice Friday that brought everybody to life

“It was a broken play. I was at the top of the key and they were pressing up on me a little too much because I don’t really drive the ball a lot, but it’s not like I can’t drive the ball. I took off. If I can gather my steps, it’s an unfortunate day for whoever tries to jump with me more often than not. It was a nice play. I was a little excited. Everybody was a little excited. The way we guard people and the way we guard at practice, it’s not often somebody does something like that or gets dunked on like that. It was fun. It was fun.” 

The conversation he had with Rick Barnes a few weeks ago

“It was a lot of stuff about my role and how I need to understand what the team needs from me regardless of what I can do and what’s going on around me because I’m a senior. A lot of stuff starts going around when you’re a senior and you still have to focus on the year. This is really our biggest year, my biggest year and that’s where my focus is and needs to be. Just talking about, it’s not even just basketball. Talking about life. Talking about how you have to take care of business how you have to know where your head is at. What’s really important to you at that time. School is important. Basketball is important. It’s important to make the best out of the last days regardless of what happens next year. It’s important to take care of these days I have here. I’ve spent three years working to get where we are and last year what went down. I worked towards being here. Being with my team, regardless of if I’m having good games or bad games. I worked towards being here in this moment with my team at the end of the year, tirelessly. We were just talking about stuff that he wants me to get better at and stuff he knows I can do. And he needs me to do for us to keep getting better.”

The things that define this team and what fans should be excited about

“We’re a big family. We love it here, we love playing here. I think the fans — we look forward to the fans, so I hope they look forward to us as much as we do them. We know when the fans are going to be here, it’s going to be an exciting game. We look forward to playing in TBA when it’s rocking like it was tonight. They already know what they need to expect from us. We play hard, we go out and we give it our all whether or not you see it on the rebounding, the box-outs, the defense. Whatever it is, we’ve got guys diving on the floor. We love this and we want to win and our fans want us to win. It’s a mutual agreement that winning is what we want to do here and playing hard is what we have to do to make sure we win.”

How Tennessee was able to ignore the hype and not let it impact the game

“I think that we were able to start off really mature. We came off and played a really good game, but I still think we showed at the end we could be better, we could be more mature, we could make better decisions and keep getting better. But yeah, we didn’t get caught up in the hype of College Gameday and the energy we had because we lost the game last year, but like I said, we are mature, but we could still be a lot more mature. There’s little nuances that we’ve got to get better at and understand the timing of the game and how to play. As you guys have seen, we’ve been getting better all year and we need to keep getting better.”

His comfort level in the post

“That’s really a tough question because I try to play at a good pace every night. Some nights it goes better. Some nights it doesn’t. Some nights shots are just falling from wherever you’re shooting it from and some times it’s kind of rough and you have to get some layups in. I’ve really just been trying to focus on making the game easier for my teammates and in that, I’m trying to get the ball in spots where I know they feel comfortable giving it to me. I’m trying to make my move in spots where I know my teammates aren’t going to cut on top of me. Just trying to understand my teammates better and it’s helping me play the game better.” 

The 9-0 Tennessee run in the first half

“We are the type of team where we don’t stop. We are going to keep coming at you. We are going to keep coming at you. We are going to keep coming at you. It is going to start on defense. It is going to translate to rebounding. Then we are going to start shooting the ball on offense. Then it is five guys, four guys trying to get to the offensive rebounds. Then it is five new guys coming on the court and doing the exact same thing. I feel like one of the best things we have is we apply pressure and we keep applying it and keep going at teams and unless you can take that and unless you can hit us back when we hit you for 40 minutes, we are going to win.”

What the environment felt like at Thompson-Boling Arena

“Amazing, man. I love playing in TBA when it’s rocking. I love playing in other games when it’s rocking whether it’s a home crowd or away crowd. I love when the fans are there and showing out. I really appreciate our fans because we do it consistently and I feel like they love doing it. The energy that they bring brings us energy, but whenever anybody’s fans show out it’s an amazing feeling wherever you’re playing at. As an athlete, not even just as a basketball player, as a an athlete it’s one of the best feelings in the world when you have all of those people out there coming to support you or cheer against you. I love it when they’re booing me. I love it when they’re cheering me. It’s just an amazing feeling, the energy that it’s an arena.”

How good the Tennessee offense can be and how consistently it can do it

“I feel like if we all keep getting better and keep going in the direction that we can, we can really be one of the best offenses in the country as well as defensively because our defense really leads to offense. (Zakai Zeigler) and (Santiago Vescovi) are at the front of that getting those steals in the backcourt and then taking off as we get those rebounds. We play fast and physical and I think we can keep getting better and we will keep getting better, but I think our offense has a lot of potential. We just have to keep working at it.”

How this Tennessee team can continue to get better in February

“We just have to come in everyday with a mature attitude that we haven’t arrived. We haven’t won the National Championship. We haven’t won’t the SEC Championship. We haven’t won the regular season championship. We haven’t won anything. Right now, we’re just as good as anybody else. We’re right where everybody else is at. We haven’t proven nothing with this team. We haven’t done nothing. We just gotta stay hungry. We gotta keep going. We gotta keep practicing hard. We gotta keep practicing smart. We gotta keep taking care of games we’re supposed to take care of. We have to keep attacking everyday like it’s the most important day because that’s the only day you’ve got.”

The confidence gained from Tennessee’s win over Texas

“Whenever you get to play in games like this that end up kind of being tight and the excitement is there, you know you have a tough matchup, you know you’re growing during the game and getting better during the game. So, I think it should give us a good amount of confidence, but I don’t think it really changes anything for us. We still have to attack everyday the same way. We still have to prepare the same way, but it should show us that we’re capable of playing anybody which we’ve already done. But it should also show us is that if we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing is if we come out every night and act like it’s a game like tonight.”

How tough the tough conversations with Rick Barnes can be

“Those conversations are tough. Coach said they’re tough and as a player they’re tough, but if you want this, if you come to a school like Tennessee, you just have to be prepared. It’s not easy. It’s not easy. Whether or not you want to go to the league, whether or not you want to play overseas or whether or not you just want to play college basketball, it’s tough, man. Coach keeps its real and he’s going to tell you exactly what you need to do to keep getting better. Not to be good, not to stay the same, not to be okay, not to stay consistent, but to keep getting better. You might have the best week of your life and end up having one of those conversations with coach because all he wants from you is to keep getting better. As a player you’re either going to accept that and get better or you’re not. If you’re in between a rock and a hard place and you fold, you’re going to crack, but coach cares for us and that’s why he’s having those conversations because he doesn’t want you to crack, he doesn’t want you to stop, he wants you to get better, he wants you to be here, he wants you to do anything and everything you can to keep growing. That’s just how he operates.”