What Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said at SEC basketball media days

What Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said during his time behind the podium at SEC basketball media days on Wednesday:

Opening Statement

“I’m ready, go ahead.”

Ja’Kobi Gillespie replacing Zakai Zeigler as Tennessee’s point guard, why he was the right fit for the Vols

“Well, we always had our eyes on Ja’Kobi, but the year he left Belmont to go to Maryland, with Zakai coming back, it was really a hard sell for us to try to convince him. But we’re excited because he brings a lot. I mean, are they similar? In some ways. And the biggest one is their competitiveness. 

Both of them are highly competitive. They’re not going back down. They both play the position differently, but I think that I would love to have those two guys together, I would tell you that. I really would have. But we’re excited Ja’Kobi come in. He’s his durability is very similar to Zakai. 

He never wants to take himself out. He wants to go every rep in practice and he’s probably put in more miles than anybody — that would have been the same about Zakai — by the summertime and through here. We’re lucky to have him. We’re blessed to have him because he is better than I thought. 

And the more I’m with him, the more I realize that he’s just going to continue to get better throughout that you hear.”

Reports about possible NCAA Tournament expansion in the future 

“You know, I don’t know what the number is. I think it’s awfully hard to ask a champion to win more than six games over three weeks, at the level that you go. That would be my biggest concern. But I understand people, allowing people to play into it. Do that, but I just don’t know how a team that has fought hard, number one, all those seeds, asking to go more than six games. That’d be my biggest concern. What number it would be to get there, I don’t know where you ever cut it off. For as long as I’ve been in it, there has always been one or two teams that, man, it used to be the first team out and it didn’t go beyond it. Now it’s now three or four, but I don’t know what the number is. I just don’t see it ever going beyond three weeks either. And I’ve heard some stories about how hard it is on those teams that play in (in the First Four) and have to rush somewhere to get somewhere the next day. That doesn’t seem like a fun experience either. And you’d like to think that teams that do get there, that they can look back on that experience as being one of the great experiences of their life, being a part of it. But with that said, I don’t know. I don’t. I just know that, again, I just don’t think the champion should have to play more than six games.”

What makes Tennessee freshman Nate Ament unique among other five-star prospects ranked among the elite as recruits  

“What he has is similar with most all those guys, or all those guys, would be his humility. He’s come in with the attitude that he’s got to get better. He knows he needs to blend in with the guys on the team. And he certainly has a great respect for his teammates. And they have a great respect for him because they see how diligent he goes about his job every day. He’s going to work hard, whether it’s in the weight room, whatever he’s got to do, he’s going to do it at a max ability. And I think his teammates respect that a great deal. 

“Nate’s learning to play a different position than he’s ever really played. I mean, we’ve kept him exclusively on the outside right now and because of our front-line depth. And he’s learning to do things at a level that he’s never had to, which is not unique to freshmen coming in, knowing how to go from one play to the next play, sustain it and turn and go the other way quicker than he ever has. But we’re more than pleased with him because of his humility and how hard he works.”

If this is one of more versatile front courts he’s had in his time at Tennessee 

“Yeah, they’re different, they are. And I think the versatility is that Cade (Phillips) can swing out and play some perimeter too because of his ability to guard. Getting JP (Estrella) back. And again, we’re still working him back full speed. I mean, we’ve needed that the last couple of years, obviously. And Felix (Okpara) has improved. I think his confidence, his leadership, is really taking, he’s taken that to a different level. And then Jaylen Carey, he hurt us more than any post player we played against last year. And he has learned to adjust what we’re doing, which is different for him, but we’re excited about that. 

“And probably the biggest surprise is Dwayne Brown. As a freshman coming in. We weren’t exactly sure where — we knew we wanted Dewayne, no question about that, but we weren’t sure how long it would take him to grab ahold of it. I think with JP being out (over the summer), he had to go up every day pretty much against Felix, which has helped him grow. And there’s no doubt he’ll be a big part of our rotation with those five guys.”

John Calipari saying on Tuesday that he hopes his generation of coaches can leave the game in a better place

“Well, I think the game is that what coaches and I think they’re terrific coaches. I’ve said it many times, I’ve been in it a long time and I haven’t coached against anybody that I didn’t think was a good basketball coach. But I think the key is that we continue to teach the game. We can’t let other countries teach it better than us. I think you go way back in the 70s, I remember hearing and Dave Gavitt talk about how all the European coaches used to come over here and want to learn the game and went back and actually started teaching it better than we did. We got so caught up in recruiting and trying to get guys and maybe not coaching at the level that we should have. I would love to see us some way, somehow improve our at the lower level, teaching kids at a very young age, the fundamentals of the game. I mean, what they watch, they watch highlights on TV and it’s always dunking the ball or 3-point shooting. And there’s so much of the game that, even today with our team right now that we’re coaching it. I’ve actually said to them a couple of times in practice, ‘I would have thought you learned that in junior high.’ And it’s things that you would expect. I hope that we never get away from wanting to be teachers of the game, the fundamentals of the game of basketball. It’s our game and we should be the best at teaching it and I don’t want us ever to get away from that.”

How much he has seen the play style of college basketball change during his time at Tennessee 

“Well, I can take you way back. I’ve seen it change for really 50 years from year to year. I remember when everybody ran the UCLA offense because that’s what they did. I remember when people ran the reverse action. I remember when everybody ran the flex, whatever was hot, people jump on it then. You see guys that watch the NBA and they want to take a play from the NBA and everybody always talks to me about that. And I said, the problem is the NBA’s got the best players in the world. And they pretty much make open shots. And so I think it goes back to, I mean, I’ve changed throughout the years, with certain things I haven’t. I mean, we’re running an offense now that I ran 39 years ago. And we put it on the shelf, bring it back. And so I think there’s different things. And you look at your team and you think this might work for this group. And if not, you maybe move on to something else. But everybody coaches it different. 

“I’ve been blessed to not only, I thought one of the greatest things that happened to me was I had a chance as an assistant to coach in this league at Alabama for a year, Ohio State for a year. And my first couple years in the Colonial, I learned so much from as an assistant watching so many other head coaches do things. And there are really things that we use today. I have a couple special situations I talked about a year ago that I got from Morgan Wootten back in 1980 that we ran at Illinois last year. And a lot of situation stuff I got when I was in college doing a coaching book from studying Dean Smith. And we actually worked on some of that yesterday. And so I don’t know, it’s just you’ve got to whatever you want, you’ve got to adjust it with your players. And I think coaches do a good job of that. I think they look at their teams and are able to make those adjustments throughout the year and do those type things.”

Competing against Steven Pearl at Auburn instead of Bruce Pearl 

“Bruce and I, through the years obviously we’ve gotten to know each other really, really well and we share a lot of thoughts on a lot of different things. And again, I think he did an incredible job at Auburn. But Bruce, everywhere he went, he won. I mean, he did a great job when he was at Tennessee. He did it everywhere. And I do know this, through the years talking to him, I know how much, obviously, we know how much that sons mean to us, but I’ve watched Steven, too, watch through the years. And Ira Bowman is on that staff and Ira played for me at Providence for a couple years. But I’ve watched Steven, you’re not going to be able to sit beside a guy, like Steven did with his dad, through all those years and not be prepared to do what he’s getting ready to do. 

“I just mentioned the time I spent with Wimp Sanderson and Gary Williams and those guys. I learned from those guys and you see what works and you make a mental or a notebook of it. You do that. And I do know that Steven is ready. I mean, Bruce has told me that, that he knew would be ready to do it. And again, Bruce knows what ready is as much as anybody. And it’s a wonderful opportunity for Steven. I think he’s ready to take that challenge.”