'A tough, tough matchup': Tennessee's Ja'Kobi Gillespie starring both on and off the ball

Rick Barnes couldn’t miss the opportunity to make a crack about his starting point guard on Monday. After Ja’Kobi Gillespie scorched Rutgers for 32 points to start the Players Era Festival, the head coach said he probably still wanted more looks at the rim.

“He’d rather shoot it 50 times a game,” Barnes said. “Am I right?”

Gillespie, seated to the left of Barnes, was looking the the box score and couldn’t help but agree when put on the spot.

“I mean, I shot 20,” Gillespie said, “so.”

So it’s safe to say, after Gillespie’s 32 points on six made 3-pointers in No. 17 Tennessee’s 85-60 win, that the point guard is just as good off the ball as he is on it. 

Gillespie scored 23 of his 32 points in the first half and finished the game 11-for-20 from the field, including 6-for-10 from the 3-point line. He added four rebounds and four assists in his 29 minutes, too. 

“He’s a very versatile player,” Barnes said, “and we do want him off the ball.”

Really, the Vols want Gillespie in two places at once. 

“We like him off the ball,” Barnes said, “but we also like him with the ball.”

Up Next: No. 17 Tennessee vs. No. 3 Houston, Wednesday, 6 p.m. ET, TNT

Nate Ament was the Robin to Gillespie’s Batman on Monday, scoring 20 points while going 4-for-6 from the 3-point line. Two of his three assists were on Gillespie buckets, first on a three and then a transition layup.

“When I’m on the ball and he’s off the ball,” Ament said, “and I get a good clean pass to him, I just think it’s an assist. I think it’s going down. So being able to have a such an automatic offensive player like that is great.”

Is he better off the ball or on? Ament opted for both.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “He’s very good on and off, so it’s just whatever the (opposing) team wants to give him. I mean, he’s great at both.” 

Tennessee wants Gillespie doing both — running the offense and being one of the biggest producers in the offense — as much as possible because he’s so capable. 

He scored 36 points in a closed scrimmage against Ohio State in October, after lighting up his teammates in a split-squad scrimmage a week earlier. He has scored 17 or more points in five of the six games this season, but also entered Monday with 30 assists, with at least four in every game.

What happens off the ball is more natural. Barnes explained what Gillespie does on the ball with the Vols as more of a learning curve. 

“He’s learning really for the first time in his career to play with a guy that he can lob to,” Barnes said. “I mean he’s never had guys he can lob to and he’s got a number of different guys on our team. So he’s had to learn that and he’s had to learn our system, what we’re trying to do. 

“But I think what he’s done really the last couple games, he’s really been able to get his teammates involved but yet keep himself involved. And he’ll get better with that, too.” 

Rick Barnes on Ja’Kobi Gillespie: ‘We wouldn’t trade him for anybody’

Gillespie was a score-first point guard at Maryland last season, scoring in double-figures in 30 of 36 games and going for 20 or more seven times while averaging 14.7 points per game. He averaged a team-high 17.2 points at Belmont two seasons ago, as the centerpiece of the Bruins offense. 

The balance he’s trying to find in his new surroundings at Tennessee is trying to do as much while also not trying to do too much.

He went from 36 points in the Ohio State scrimmage to shooting just 5-for-21 from the field, including 3-for-13 from the 3-point line, in the exhibition loss against Duke on October 26.

“He came out pressing too much (against Duke),” Barnes said. “I think he learned from that that. He’s just gotten better as a point guard. Off the ball, he knows how to play, he does. 

“But I think truly, in our opinion, (he can be) certainly one of the very best point guards in the country. We wouldn’t trade him for anybody.”

His play on Monday, both as a point guard and a shooting guard, showed why.

“We were trying to do a great job on him and trying to limit his touches,” Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell said. “He can set people up and he can score himself. He’s really a tough, tough matchup.”