What Rick Barnes said after No. 13 Tennessee's 62-60 loss at Syracuse

SYRACUSE — What head coach Rick Barnes said after No. 13 Tennessee Basketball’s 62-60 loss at Syracuse Tuesday night in the ACC/SEC Challenge game at JMA Wireless Dome:

Jaylen Carey’s performance

“Played hard. Maybe as hard as we’ve seen him play, trying to work on both ends, and you know, he’s a guy that’s a problem for teams. But I thought Jaylen really gave us a lot there. I think he should have got the ball more, because he’s not selfish, he’ll make the right play out of it. Guard play wasn’t very good.

“But I don’t want to take anything away from Syracuse. They won the game and I’m really am happy for Coach (Adrian) Autry. He’s a wonderful person, class guy, got a tough job — any job today is tough, but I’m just a fan of his. And give them all the credit, I’m sure he’s likely me, we both know we got to get a whole lot better. But the fact is they did what they had to do to win the game. They deserve it to win it.”

What Tennessee was trying to do on the offensive possession left with nine seconds left

“We were going to get Ja’Kobi (Gillespie) driving the ball. And we had Felix (Okpara) in position to possibly rebound it. Or the play we thought would happen, where we got the ball right there in the middle to Jaylen and he got a good look at it. Didn’t go in, but we thought we’d had the board covered that way. But we had our chances.

“Again, we had so many chances early. Some of the turnovers we had was ridiculous and some of our shot selection was ridiculous. And we can talk about the last minute, even the last play of the game. I was surprised Nate had a chance to throw it up there. But again, give Syracuse all the credit for winning the game because they made the plays when they had to and we didn’t.” 

What he saw from this Syracuse team, compared to the last two seasons 

“They’re the best (Syracuse) defensive team since we’ve been playing the last couple years. We’ve kind of run into them a couple times in tournaments and he’s got some young guys. But they play hard and they put the pieces together. And we’re still early December. And understand, they just played three of the toughest teams in Vegas that you could play. That was a gauntlet. It’s a testament to Coach Autry and his staff and his players to come back from that with not a win, and what they did tonight. And again, they deserved to win this game. I thought they played hard, competed hard, did all the things that they needed to do to get a win.” 

If he expected Syracuse’s Nate Kingz to go for 19 first half points

“No, no. We don’t expect that from anybody. We don’t expect that out of anybody, but it goes back to focus coming in. I said before the game. The Kansas game— the first three possessions of that game was the worst we’ve been all year. And it’s just focus. Scouting report. Guys not locked in. Guys thinking about anything other than what they should be thinking about.”

On the adjustment on Kingz in the second half

“Well, just players scouting report, that’s all we ask them to do. Our coaches, like every coach in the country, coaching staff, you spend a lot of time in the film room preparing. We have a pretty good feel now with, if you want to look at analytics, you look at analytics and this and that, but there’s just a focus and guys playing the role, doing the job they needed to do.”

The impact of Syracuse forward William Kyle

“I like anybody that is quote-unquote an unsung hero guy that just makes basketball plays. Is who he is and plays to his strengths. Again, I wish I had some guys that understood that. He knows exactly what he’s supposed to do and he does it for his team. Very unselfish.”

What Tennessee freshman Nate Ament is learning through this process

“A whole lot harder. And he’s not going to be able to do the things that he did in high school. It’s a process. We knew he’d go through it, but he’s going to have to listen because we’re telling him. But some of it, he’s going to have to go through the fire and he’s going to have to learn when to pick his spots, when not to. But he’s also got to continue to understand the flow of the game. We love him to death. We do, and he works his tail off, but there’s just so much of this game he still has to learn. And he’s never been a quote-unquote true permanent player. 

“He is learning to do that on both ends. But he’s putting so much pressure on himself and he doesn’t need to do that. He’s got good guys around him. They have great respect for him and they know when they need to get it involved, where they need to get it. He’s just, he’s pressing. He’s really, again, he’s putting way too much pressure on himself.”

Tennessee turning it over 17 times, trying to slow the game down

“Well, sometimes when you slow it down, both coaches might think, ‘Hey, we’re gonna turn it over more,’ you know? I mean, you’ve gotta do what you practice. And that’s what’s bothered me the last two games. We don’t do what we practice. That’s what bothers me. I know people think that, but it’s really hard to score if you just want to totally settle into a half court game. It really is. And so you still have to try to crack it and try to get something early. But if not, like, you think, why won’t we come down every time and throw it to Jaylen (Carey)? But they’re gonna double team and do some other things. But yeah, I mean sometimes we just need to refund the money because that was some pretty bad basketball for a while both ways.”

If Tennessee point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie is still learning like Nate Ament, or if the senior is too old for that

“He’s learning how to run a team. He’s never really been asked to do that at a high level; make the right plays, read what’s going on. Like, both he and Ethan (Burg), we felt like we could get what we wanted (with) different ball-screen actions, but it was there. When I looked at it at halftime, it was there every time, but they tried to do something else to compound and make it harder. It didn’t need to be any harder, but that’s again, part of the learning process.”

What Tennessee has in the combo of DeWayne Brown and Jaylen Carey

“We have seen it all summer. They practiced together. We are just waiting on both of them to get where they need to be defensively. That has been the biggest key. There is no doubt we know when they are on the floor, offensively that is our best frontline. Obviously, J.P. brings a whole different dynamic to our team. But still DeWayne, the biggest mistake I made in Vegas was not giving him enough minutes. Tonight, I think is going to really bode well for him going forward.”