Tennessee's Jaylen Carey after beating Houston: 'We are the best front court in the country'

LAS VEGAS — Rick Barnes still had Lucas Oil Stadium on his mind Tuesday night. It wasn’t that he couldn’t shake Tennessee’s loss to Houston in the Elite Eight, it was that he couldn’t shake how it happened. 

Not then, not during the summer, not now.

“We knew when we walked off the floor last year after losing to Houston,” Barnes said, “ … we knew that if we didn’t get something inside — I went back and watched that game four or five times.”

And twice this week in Las Vegas, before Tuesday night’s rematch.  

“We had absolutely no presence in the lane at all,” Barnes said, still looking back at the 69-50 NCAA Tournament loss.

Houston out-rebounded Tennessee 42-35, with 14 offensive rebounds leading to 19 second-chance points. The Cougars scored 30 points in the paint, to just 14 for the Vols. 

Felix Okpara scored four points after taking just one shot from the field in his 29 minutes. Cade Phillips was scoreless in 11 minutes. Igor Milicic had two points in 19 minutes. 

“We walked off the floor,” Barnes said, “and I remember talking to Danny White and I said, ‘We’re going to have to get an inside game.’”

Up Next: No. 17 Tennessee vs. Kansas, Wednesday, 7 p.m. ET, TNT

Fast forward eight months and No. 17 Tennessee rallying from down 11 points to beat No. 3 Houston 76-73 in the second round of the Players Era Festival. The Vols scored 38 points in the paint, 16 second-chance points and got a combined 22 points and 17 rebounds from a frontline of Okpara, Phillips, JP Estrella and Jaylen Carey. 

“Really proud of our post guys,” Barnes said. “Jaylen, all of them made a big-time contribution.”

Carey wasn’t around for the first meeting at Houston. He was at Vanderbilt averaging 8.0 points and 5.7 rebounds per game. 

He was part of the solution, though, joining a group of Tennessee forwards that also returned Estrella from injury and added four-star freshman DeWayne Brown, while brining back Okpara and Phillips. 

Houston on Tuesday was the group’s first true test to see if these Vols would be physical enough and productive enough against elite competition. Carey, who finished with 13 points and seven rebounds off the bench, never had any doubts. 

“It proves what I said the other day,” Carey said, “that we are the best front court in the country. I truly believe so. And we didn’t even get DeWayne Brown out there (against Houston). So I truly believe we are the best front court in the country.”

Carey confirmed just how much Barnes had referenced and rewatched the loss to Houston last March, including another watch on Monday.

“Just emphasizing that they were going try to out-physical us,” Carey said, “and we didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want allow that to happen, so we showed it to them. 

“We out-toughed them for sure.” 

‘They’re really an elite post-up team and there’s not many post-up teams anymore’

Tennessee’s backcourt did much of the work on Monday in the 85-60 win over Rutgers, with Ja’Kobi Gillespie scoring a career-high 32 points and Nate Ament adding 20.

But Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell saw all he needed to see from the Vols’ bigs, both in person and on film, altering his rotation to add what he described as more “beef” on the floor.

“We just wanted to play our guys that are 250 and above,” Pikiell said, “because they have like five of them that are at that size. And got to get those guys some minutes.”

“They’re really an elite post-up team,” he added later, “and there’s not many post-up teams anymore, but every one of their guys can seal you in the post and finish.”

That’s exactly what Barnes had in mind when he left Indianapolis in March. More bigs. More options. More physicality. More finishing.

“We have a lot of bodies, a lot of bigs,” Okpara said. “ … We just go at it, play hard. If someone’s getting tired, someone gets in. That’s what is special about this team this year. We have a lot of guys. Guy getting tired, guys in foul trouble, we have people to plug in.”