Everything Rick Barnes said after Tennessee’s win over Illinois

Rick Barnes discusses No. 17 Tennessee basketball’s win over No. 20 Illinois on Saturday afternoon in Knoxville.

No. 17 Tennessee knocked off No. 20 Illinois, 86-79, on Saturday afternoon inside the Thompson-Boling Arena at the Food City Center.

The Vols were led by 21 points from star guard Dalton Knecht, who was one of five Vols to reach double figures, as Jonas Aidoo chipped in 14 points, Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James each scored 12, and Zakai Zeigler added 11, respectively.

Vols head coach Rick Barnes met with the media following the win to discuss what went well for his team and the play of multiple players. Here’s everything Barnes had to say.

If Tennessee saw the Santiago Vescovi of old against Illinois:

“It was. He’s been such a big part of who we have been the last couple years. And to see him come out playing the way he did, he’s kept a plan. He’s had a tough semester. He lost his grandmother; that’s hard, but he would say it’s been hard academically. Because he’s serious about getting done what he wants to get done there. But I was just really proud of the fact that he and our older guys, I thought, really were well prepared for this game.”

“Well, I thought the two biggest things—I thought he and both Zakai kind of changed the tide there when they came in with their effort—came up with some loose ball plays that we needed. And Illinois is a terrific team. I mean, unbelievable how well-coached they are. They’re older; they’ve been around. We told our guys for two days that, regardless of the ebbs and flows of the game, I can assure you they’re not going to go away. I know our guys would stay in it too, but they’re just a hard team to play. And their size, their length—they can throw a lot of bodies at you that way. But I thought those two guys, when we were down there, flipped the tide for us with their energy, their effort, and just coming up and creating some plays for us.”

“Well, again, you talk about it; it truly was a team effort because Shannon is such a good player. And he plays with such speed and acceleration that, if you don’t get more than one guy paying attention to him, he’s going to get where he wants to go. And everybody says he loves to go left; you play him right. He went down the floor, going right too. And Brad (Underwood) does a lot of good things to get him in a position where he’s effective. But I thought Santi and Josiah, when some of the directions they were running, we were switching. And then, obviously, Jahmai came in and did the same thing. But one of the big keys coming in was our transition. We wanted to get back and build the wall and really take away as many transition baskets as possible, especially with him being a one-man fast break and just trying to build that wall up there.

“But they made some shots, which you’d expect them to do. But overall, probably the most focused I thought our guys were in terms of the details of our scouting report all year. I thought they were really, really locked in in terms of knowing what we had to do on the defensive end. And we rebounded the ball against an outstanding rebounding team. I mean, they really are relentless. And again, if you knew Brad, you expected that. They’re going to challenge everything you do and this is a nice win against a team that’s going to win a lot of basketball games this year. And they’re as good as anybody that we played up to this point. But a really great effort from our guys.”

“I thought Jahmai today played his role to the hilt. In terms of affecting the game in so many different ways,. I thought maybe, other than one or two plays, he did what we needed him to do on the offensive end. He embraces it and when he does that, he is a weapon. Today, he was huge. One reason, too, was allowing Zakai not to play as many minutes because, at the end of the game, he was going to be there some. The fact is, his role, what Jahmai does, is as important as anybody on the team. As much as Dalton, everybody thinks he is going to score the ball. What Jahmai does wins basketball games for you. He had a lot to do today with what went on out there for us to win this game.”

“Aggressive mentality. I thought he was really aggressive and rebounding the ball. Again, I talk about fix-it plays with those older guys and they do help each other a lot so that they can fix each other’s mistakes at times out there on the fly, which is obviously so important. But when he’s aggressive like that and getting, we got the ball inside, you know, and it doesn’t have to be just throw it in there; you know, we gotta get movement. And Santi goes down to score. I mean, we get that penetration. Jordan (Gainey) did it; ‘Z’ he’s going to do it. Josiah did it. We’ve got to play inside-out. But when Santis brings that aggressive mentality, I think it affects everyone.”

“Well, the point of emphasis is that because we knew we were getting ready, we were going to compete against one of the best rebounding teams in the country. And they’re relentless. And I think our guys knew that. And they’re long and they shoot it. They do a great job of going to get it. And we knew going into the game that would be… we harped on that this week, obviously with transition defense. But we are getting back and trying to get our defense set. But we talked about finishing plays defensively because they’re great at it. They come and they’re big; they’re long. And we were obviously concerned about ‘Z’ (Zakai Zeigler) because sometimes we knew he’d be caught down there on the baseline. But he fought hard today and we knew they were going to post something, all that. But we knew it was going to be a hard-fought game. And that’s exactly what I think people got.”

Everything Rick Barnes said after Tennessee’s win over Illinois

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