What Rick Barnes, Vols said after Tennessee's 79-70 win over NC State

Everything head coach Rick Barnes, fifth-year senior wing Josiah-Jordan James and junior point guard Zakai Zeigler after Zeiger and James combined for 43 points to lead No. 12 Tennessee to a 79-70 win over North Carolina State Saturday night in San Antonio:

The importance of Zakai Zeigler’s play

“He really, in some ways, dominated the tempo and flow of the game in terms of what he did. The four steals were big in terms of disrupting them. You look at his line, it’s a great line, and you look at the fact that he got his players involved. He knew what he needed to do, his teammates. But it was our defense. The older guys closed it out at the end with their defense. But he was terrific tonight playing the most minutes he has all year. What did he get 38 (minutes)? That’s probably about 30 too many for him but we’ll let him do it if he does that. (Laughs)”

If he thinks Zakai Zeigler is 100% back yet

“Do I think he’s 100% physically? I don’t know if I’d say that but he’s close. He knows he’s close. But mentally, he’s definitely 100% back.”

Tennessee’s veterans playing well after the poor second half Tuesday against Georgia Southern

“I said the other night I have so much confidence and respecting these guys and it’s their team. And they have been through a lot of games through the years and the other night I wanted to get that game over with, where there was no doubt, where those younger guys could play. And the older guys know that I wasn’t happy with them. But what they always do, they fixed it. They came out and we know that when we play teams like this, it’s going to be a physical game and these guys are used to it. And at the end I thought their composure, their togetherness on the bench was terrific. They knew what they had to do. I have to say very little during a timeout. They know and they both mentioned that they’re going to put it on their defense. And every guy we got out there was capable of making a shot and ‘Z’ made a big one, Jo made a big one. But we got the stops we needed,”

Jonas Aidoo still be sick and Tobe Awaka playing important minutes in the second half 

“I do think Jonas was under the weather. And Jonas is a guy that he needed his reps in practice and he didn’t practice yesterday. Proud of Tobe. We got to get him involved more. You get him on that left, like that jump hook he was great. Great play by him. And we probably have more confidence in Tobe than he’s got himself in some ways. But Jonas fought through it. But Tobe, (I) know we put JP (Estrella) out there again, think we needed some length and even though it didn’t seem like much, it again tried to drag it out to where Jo and Santi, we didn’t even, we messed up on Jo’s foul (count). We didn’t know he had two in the first half. We thought Santi had two and that was our mistake. But there’s a really, a great team win. And again, really proud. As much as I was disappointed in the older guys the other night on that, proud him more because playing a tremendous team, plays hard, physical aggressive. We came out and got it done.”

His thought on Dalton Knecht’s struggles of late

“Going have to adjust. Totally different level than he is ever played at. And he will. But he’s seeing some things that he’s never seen before and he’s going to see where teams are going to try to get physical with him as teams have done the last couple games. Then they try to heavy gap him. They got up there on ball screens and hit him hard, where he was predetermined what he was going to do before he got the ball. And that’s normally not what he does. But he’ll learn from it because he wants to. And what he’s going to learn too, when he is not (scoring), he doesn’t have to press that hard on offense if he’ll guard, because these guys, they wanna get him ball. They’ll get it to him where he needs it, as opposed to him thinking he’s got to create something with it every time it touches his hand.”

Santiago Vescovi and Jahmai Mashack continuing to play different roles in helping this Tennessee team win

“They want to win, like Dalton. We’re all hurting for (Knecht). We know we need Dalton and he’ll help us. But you know what? We also know you go through growing pains. As the season goes on and people start looking at analytics and scouting teams and go back and look. I mean, we know that’s going to happen and these guys will help him grow more than anything. Because I know we’ve got a lot of respect for him, but sometimes you got to hit rock bottom like this and look around and know that, one, he’s got a great group with him that’s pulling for him and we know we need him. And they know and everyone knows it, but as we move forward, it’s about getting better.

“And I would say that with the other guys on our team, too. I mean, we got guys on the bench that we eventually want to get into some playing time, but our schedule’s been so brutal that we haven’t been able to get those guys the minutes that we’d love to. But these guys, these two guys (Zakai Zeigler and Josiah-Jordan James) have played a lot of minutes this year and probably more than we probably like this time of year. But the games we’ve been in, we’ve had to go with the older guys and they’ve done the thing for us.”

Zakai Zeigler

If he’s 100% back

“I’m back. That’s all I can really say. I’m back”

What was working well for him

“I felt like just getting confident and getting downhill. It was opening up the court, not only for me, but for my teammates and we were able to get whatever we want when we would just play with pace, get down hill and not let the defense beat us up.”

The physicality between Tennessee and NC State

“I feel like the physicality of the game, we felt like we couldn’t blame anything on the refs and just had to play our own game. That was just that. We had to stay solid on defense, not try to use too much hands but stay solid on defense like we know how to play and just believe that we’re really just the best defense in the country by staying in front of people and just disrupting them without fouling.”

Tennessee defense to close to the game

“We know that if we get a shot up and we don’t make it, we can get a stop on the other end. Simple as that. That’s all we can know.””

Josiah-Jordan James

Tennessee defense’s being strong close to the game

“That’s what we hang our hats on. So we knew that knowing crunch time, that’s what we had to be able to sort of rely on. And I was proud of how we executed at the end.”

How Tennessee’s veterans bounced back from Georgia Southern

“I definitely do. And obviously there’s things we have to work on. Basketball’s a game of runs, but I feel like we responded for 40 minutes and that’s why we were able to come out on top. We knew it was gonna be a tough game, a physical game, and I was just proud of how everybody played on both ends on the floor.”

What was working well for him

“Just my teammates getting me in my spots. Shooting the ball with confidence. My teammates and my coaches give me the ultimate confidence. And I’m glad that the shots went down today.”