Tennessee assistant coach Amorrow Morgan previews Saturday's game vs. Northern Kentucky

What Tennessee Basketball assistant coach Amorrow Morgan said Friday afternoon before practice at Pratt Pavilion, previewing Saturday’s afternoon’s game against Northern Kentucky:

His takeaway from Tennessee’s 76-61 win over Mercer on Monday

“That we have an extremely talented group. Fairly young as we know, but obviously there were a lot of positives with Nate (Ament) playing really, really well. But there’s times for us to continue to keep coming together, in my opinion. We got to obviously take better care of the basketball for the entirety of the game. But I think for Game 1 with the new group, they did come out and play pretty well and finished the game pretty well.”

How important Tennessee’s first five games are before going the Players Era Men’s Championship in Las Vegas  

“I would say it’s critical. Credit to, you know, Schap (Luke Schapker) and GP (Gregg Polinsky), just from a scheduling perspective, I think it’s huge. Just having so many new bodies, so many new faces, and just having a chance to learn. Coach (Rick Barnes) had an opportunity to be able to play Troy (Henderson) and Amari (Evans) and give DeWayne Brown continued minutes because he’s going to be so good for us longterm. So I think these next three weeks are going to be critical for us for sure.”

If the first few weeks of the season are more important in the NCAA Transfer Portal era, with rosters turning over so much each season

 “Yeah, for sure. Obviously, Coach (Barnes) is the mastermind behind this. 

He’s a genius when it comes to just trying to make sure we’re putting the best players out there all the time, but also making sure that we’re giving these young guys opportunities to continue to keep growing. So that’s, in my opinion, the beauty of this schedule, that we’re not forced to have to play, a Felix Okpara, who’s already had the experience, 25 to 30 minutes. We can play him 15 to 20 minutes as we did and still come out with a pretty good win.”

If they look for any certain pairings in Tennessee’s front court or if it relies more on the flow of the game

“I would say just, right now, we have the depth to continue to keep trying to overwhelm guys over the course of the game. That’s what we want to do. Obviously, when you talk about Houston and you talk about Florida, just the depth that they had inside last year, I know there’s been a huge emphasis of coach just trying to make sure that we continue to keep sending guys in waves. So at times we can play double bigs. At times we can go smaller with Cade (Phillips). We can give guys different looks for our advantage, but then we can also match other teams’ personnel as well, if need be. So I think moving forward that’s going to be so huge for us is just our front court. We just need them to perform a little bit better and guard a little bit better down the stretch, because I know the big kid at Mercer, he kind of had some success late.”

The progress of Tennessee guard Ethan Burg from the Duke exhibition to the opener vs. Mercer

“He’s just figuring it out just more and more. Obviously he got here a lot later than everyone else. He’s always been somebody that’s super inquisitive. He has tons and tons of questions. He wants to know exactly what our program wants to do, what coach wants to do. But then at the same time, he’s always had some leadership skills. And in our huddles, he’s as vocal as anybody. So as he continues to learn what we do, he’ll have more of a voice. But obviously in the Duke scrimmage he shot it really, really well. But he’s going be great for us moving forward. We just need him to continue to keep learning and his veteran leadership is going to be critical for us late in the season.” 

Forward DeWayne Brown contributing as a freshman

“He has an incredibly high IQ for a freshman, in my opinion. I know Coach GP said that when he recruited him, just what their staff at Hoover said about him is that you could tell him something once and he could catch it on, catch it pretty quick, learn it pretty quick, and he can move on. But then at the same time, he’s an everyday guy, in my opinion. So he’s one of our guys Coach talked about, he’s ran as many miles as anybody in our program because he hasn’t missed very many days, when you talk about an availability standpoint. So when you talk about the summer and the fall, like he’s been available the entire time. And that’s been an opportunity for him to learn from some really good upperclassmen, JP, and obviously learn from Cade and learn from Felix. But he doesn’t back down ever. And then one of his strongest traits that’s going to be great for us is that he’s just a consistent person. He’s an everyday guy. And I think that’s a huge reason why he can figure out a way to score and be crafty. He is scoring down in the post without jumping very high. Obviously, he doesn’t have a great vertical, but he has great hands, great feel and he’s extremely intelligent.”

What stands out about Northern Kentucky

“Obviously, Darrin Horn is a really good coach. He’s coached in his league before, when he was at South Carolina. They’re going to be scrappy. They’re going to play really, really hard. They’re a different style of team. They’re going to try to run their matchup zone, which is giving people fits in the past. Obviously, it’s not something that Coach has never seen before. But they also have just as much as probably any mid-major program around the country, they have a ton of turnover, too. So it’s a lot of new guys. But we do know his team is going to be one of the hardest-playing teams to come in and play. So we’re ready for that scrappiness. We thought Mercer was really scrappy. And then we also thought Duke was extremely physical. So it’s another good test for us as we get ready for the Players Era.”

The next step for Tennessee point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie

“Yeah, I would just say him continuing to learn our system and then also learning our guys. He kind of came out with such a great start when you talk about our intrasquad scrimmage and when you talk about our closed-door scrimmage against Ohio State, but just trying to like pick his spots. I think this is one of the first times in his career that he’s actually looked at as the guy that’s at the top of the scouting report, potentially. So, just learning to play the game the right way. He’s had a really level head about everything. He’s excited to continue to keep being one of our leaders. I’m excited to see how he moves forward. Like, I thought in the second half he played really well, although he might not have shot it as well. He had five assists in the second half. And I thought he got us going. There was a stretch where they tried to make a run late. He found Troy in transition. He found, it might have been Jaylen Carey for a dunk. So he’s just learning this group. So I’m excited to see how he continues to develop.”