What Rick Barnes said Thursday during Tennessee Basketball media day

What head coach Rick Barnes said during his press conference at Tennessee Basketball’s local media day Thursday afternoon at Pratt Pavilion:

What he likes about where this Tennessee Basketball team is right now

“I think they have continued to work. We have, obviously, once we got into official practice, (spent) a lot more time in the film room, where I think they see day by day where we are behind, where we need to get ahead. And I do like the response for the most part as a staff. We like that they try to respond to some of those things. But we’re looking for consistency every day from everyone. But overall, I think the work ethic has been good. But we’ve got to just keep cleaning up the areas that we know we’ve got to clean up.”

Who has been the most consistent Tennessee player in the lead up to the season 

“I would think day in and day out the most consistent guys have probably been Ja’Kobi (Gillespie), certainly, I would throw Felix (Okpara) in that group. And for a young guy, I think Nate (Ament has) done a pretty good job with that too, because a lot has been thrown at him. And everyone has shown that they can do it. It’s just a matter of putting those back-to-back days together. Been impressed with Ethan (Burg) in a short time that he’s been able to pick up, in only what, eight or nine practices? I think that he’s shown a real willingness to figure out a whole different game for himself that he’s playing right now. But we just need more and more of it.” 

The health of Tennessee forwards JP Estrella and Cade Phillips 

“They’re going at it. They’re there. There are certain things we’ll continue to monitor with both JP and Cade. But they’re doing fine.”

One thing that Tennessee fans don’t know about this team

“Most of them wouldn’t know some of them’s names. I think the biggest thing is we’ve got so many new guys that they’re going to get introduced to these guys here pretty soon. But the fact is, unless you’re here every day and around players, you don’t ever really know. But being around them every day, we’ve got a really good group of guys that have a real commitment to each other. And that’s not just me coach speaking or whatever. I mean, we feel that that’s the one thing this summer that we weren’t sure about, how we bring in so many different guys, how they’re going to blend and they’ve done a great job with that.”

Losing players like Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack and still maintaining the same culture within the Tennessee Basketball program 

“You do (worry about that). That was a big thing coming in. That’s why we believe the most important thing we can do is retention. And when you’re talking about retention. And when you talk about retention, you’re talking about guys that understand the way you do things, the way you want things done on a day-to-day basis, not just in this building, but away from here in everything they do, how we want our program represented. And so I really do appreciate the older guys setting the tone for these young guys that come in because they don’t know what they don’t know. And so much is so new to them, they just don’t know. For the most of them, everybody that comes in, until they go through the blender of it, the grind of it, it’s just really hard to explain to anybody. Even though I think when they see it on a visit or something like that, they think they can do it, but they realize once they get here it’s harder than they think. And it’s supposed to be. But our older guys, I think, really do and have done a good job trying to explain to them and talk about what’s next, what we’re up against, and what we’ll be up against every night.”

How he has adapted to the NIL era of college basketball

“Well, again, in all my time in college basketball, you’ve had to adapt every year to something. I mean, it is what it is. I mean, there’s been so many different changes throughout my career in basketball. And you just do it, you adapt. If you don’t, it’s not going to work. But with where we are today, I’m thankful again, it goes to our administration, they’ve done everything from their point of view, in terms of what we have to do to be competitive where we are today and how it has to be done. And we’ve got an incredible staff. They jump in on it. They know exactly what we’ve got to do. We have our formula that we’re going to stick with and where we are today. And that’s not to say it might not change tomorrow. But we’re in a position that we are always ready to adapt, change and pivot in different ways based on where we are, what might happen with rule changes and all that. I mean, we’re just ready to pivot wherever we need to pivot to.” 

How he has been able to stay true to who he is as a coach while so much change has taken place in college athletics 

“I think transparency. I think when we talk to people about our program here, we’re very transparent, very honest and tell them how it’s going to be, regardless of all the other things that we’re dealing with in college sports today. I mean, still the game is the game and fundamentals are the fundamentals. And the way we play, we want to recruit to the style that we want to play to, but we also know that sometimes the players might not do exactly what you thought coming in. You have to adjust to that. You have to adapt to that. And when you’ve got an experienced staff like I have and the time that they put into these guys, we quickly learn about them and know which way we need to go with them.”

How new Tennessee assistant coaches Steve McClain and Amorrow Morgan have adjusted in their new roles  

“They’re great. Both of those guys, I mean, certainly, Steve has been around a long, long time. I don’t know what it is, but people think he’s my brother. We were out recruiting yesterday and we went into this place to eat and I actually said, well, he is my older brother. But he’s been around. He knows. He’s one of those guys, again, talking about adapting and pivoting in  the business, he understands it because he’s a grinder. And I think where Amorrow has come in, I mean, his personality and who he is, being the youngest guy with our staff, he’s been great. He’s got an incredible work ethic. You can tell he’s worked really hard in the business up to this point, where he knows a lot of people. And he’s just been great with the players. 

Both of them have been. And we’ve improved ourselves and I’m excited about that. And again, those two guys bring a wealth of recruiting to where I don’t think it falls on one or two guys. And they’re really connected there with the rest of the staff in terms of how we’re trying to go about it.”

Nate Ament adding 19 pounds since April, how he has progressed physically

 “When you work as hard as Nate works, he’s going to progress. But it’s all new to him. I mean, he’s learning to play on the perimeter for the first time in his life, consistently, guarding guards. In high school, he was mostly matched up with post guys that played around the basket. So he’s learning how to play a lot away from the basket. It’s fun because he doesn’t even know yet what we know about how much he’s going to improve between now (the end of the year). And even he’s improving every day. But he wants to improve, that’s what makes it great. I mean, he’s open about everything. 

He’s diligent, puts a lot of time in on his own, comes back always wanting to watch film, always wanting to figure out how to get better. And he’s a guy right now, and I would tell anybody that, we’re certainly not going to put him in the box. And I wouldn’t put a cap on him because who knows what he might end up being when he’s done here.”

How important it has been for him to add weight as he makes the transition to college basketball

“Well it is (important). And it’s really impressive the fact that we’ve ran a lot, and when you’re trying to put on weight, you’re as active as we are, it’s hard to do that. But he’s put it on in the right way, muscle weight. And he’ll continue to do that. That’s just the process he’s gonna go through. And hopefully next couple weeks he’ll keep building with that because he needs that and he needs more.” 

If he feels a different responsibility to help a prospect like Nate Ament reach his ceiling

“Well, I’ll tell you the truth, and we feel, I think if you talk to the players, I mean, I was in the locker room the other day with a couple of guys at 7 o’clock at night talking to them about what we expect. You guys ask about him more, obviously, and for obvious reasons. But we want that for all of them. I mean, we don’t want any of our guys to think that we’re not (putting everything into them). They’re all at a different place in some ways, different degrees of the maturity level. How they see it, what they see. And so each guy, we spend so much time with each guy. And as coaches, we’ve got great coaches with that. We’re very direct with our guys, very direct. 

And some of them might think it’s more than (direct). I don’t know what they might think other than it’s right between the eyes. And when they hear that, they might want somebody to maybe soothe it over for them, so I got coaches that do it off of that.”

How Cade Phillips has benefited from that direct coaching

“Cade is tough. Cade comes from a very competitive family. And he wouldn’t know it any other way. He’s been around competition within his family and sort of the work ethic there. And again, another guy that, so I give our staff great credit, not a highly recruited player, but someone that we saw something in and he’s grown into He’s worked and his best days are ahead.”

The difference in style of play for the international players

“Well, it’s just a totally different game. I mean, the physicality is different, the tempo is different. It’s just different. The intensity level is really ratcheted up, obviously, too. And not that they don’t do it, it’s just a different game, you know. There are going to be things, like traveling is going to be called more here than the way it might be there. And they allow some continuation things that won’t happen here. 

“But Ethan’s doing great with it. Again, I know he’s really hard on himself trying to figure this out. But for a guy that’s only been through what, eight, nine practices, he’s done really well.”

The point of emphasis to get Ja’Kobi Gillespie out of his comfort zone as a vocal leader

“Well, and we still will. I mean, that’s something he knows he’s gonna have to work at. He’s had enough people, not just us, but people outside of our program that we’ve had talk to him, talk about he’s gonna have to be more boisterous and let his voice be heard, especially on the court. It’s like any part of the game. Some guys need to work on shooting or passing. He needs to work on that part of it from his position and he will. ‘Cause again, he really cares. He’s got incredible stamina. He’s probably put in more miles than anybody on our team. I mean, he hardly ever takes himself out or comes out. And that’s just another facet of the game. He’s going to have to be conscious of doing it.”

How different he believes the offense will be this season because of the presence they’ll have in the post

“Well, it’s different. It really is. I’ve been able to watch some games — I was out (recruiting) yesterday and watching some tape on the plane of some of our games last year, and, I mean, we went games on games where we really didn’t even try to post the ball, you know? And that’s different. Obviously, we’re going to have a chance to do that in various different ways. That is one of the major differences.”

How Israeli guard Ethan Burg continues to adjust to Tennessee

“His biggest adjustment is understanding the way I talk. That’s the obvious one. He told me, he said, ‘Coach, I don’t understand you sometimes.’ I said, ‘neither does my wife, so don’t feel bad about it, you know?’ He does, because I mean, we said something to him one day. I said, ‘I want you to play above the block. He had no idea what the block was. He said the block to them is in front of the basket. I said, ‘well, you figure that out. I’m not changing,’ you know? 

“But, you know, it’s just little things like that. He’s mature. He’s not afraid to speak up and he’s going to compete. But we haven’t waited on him. We told him, we’re not waiting. You know, this train started rolling back in the summer and said, you’re going to have to jump on board and we’re not going to be able to slow down and go back and try to teach you everything. You’re going to have to use your experience. You’re going to have to watch. You’re going to have to come out there and you’re going to have to go. But we’re not waiting, you know, and he’s been fine with that.”

What the the growth of Tennessee freshman point guard Troy Henderson has been like

“Great. He really had, last week, he had put together some of his best days back to back. And it goes back to, I would say that about Troy, Moe (Amaree Abram), so many of those guys that it’s now what can we count on every day? That’s what it’s going to get down to, the consistency part of it with all these guys and, Troy, last week, he really had a good week.”

How Cade Phillips is settling into more of a leadership role as a junior

“Well, I think he was until he got hurt. He was out for a while. That always sets you back when you’re not out there because, I mean, those guys know how hard it is to go through what we go through daily. And when you’re on the side sometimes, I think guys feel like, well, maybe they can’t stay where they are because those guys are going through it. 

“But Cade, I mean, he’s going to play. He’s going to do it. But again, he’ll do that for us. He knows we need that for him. We need it from J.P. (Estrella), too. We need those guys who have been here to be the guys that just keep talking about what we’re up against.”