Coaches Mark Pope and Rick Barnes after Friday's game in Indianapolis. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Here is what Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said Friday night after his Vols beat Kentucky, 78-65, in the Sweet Sixteen after losing to the Cats twice earlier this season.
Opening statement
“Just again, the utmost respect for University of Kentucky and Mark Pope, just great respect all around for that university and him as a person. Extremely proud of our guys. They beat us twice and scored. I think they hit 12 threes in both games, and obviously, tonight, our number one objective, even though, to be quite honest with you, was the last two games too, but they just — they beat us. We guarded the three-point line, and just blessed having these guys every day, how hard they work and I’m just… thank God the fact that I get to spend another day with them.”
On if it was an emphasis to set the tone with physicality“I don’t ever want to take anything away. They beat us. Whether we did or didn’t do our job, the fact is they beat us, but we knew we had to defend the three-point line better. They made three tonight. They got 13 off and Lamont Butler was terrific. He made four of them. That was our number one goal. They run such a good offense. We just wanted to take away the easy back cuts and the three-point line, and we did a better job today than the other two games.”
On having a moment like this at this point in his career
“If you want me to be totally transparent, I have been praying and thanking God for the opportunity to be here because I think all things come from Him and it’s a blessing. We talk about being here at this time, and the number one objective is to bring glory to Him, and that’s what I was thinking about, how blessed I am to have the opportunity to stay in this business, and hopefully, by what we do, we bring the glory to Him.”
On if enough people nationally know how good Jordan Gainey has been this season
“No, I don’t. I think one of the biggest compliments that Jordan should get, when we’re on the road or someplace like this, and they introduce the players, we never come out because we don’t consider that we’ve got just five starters. We consider him a starter, and that’s a tradition we’ve had all year. Our motto has been “it’s not about me”. So, again, we don’t go out. They stay together, work together, sweat together. Jordan, you know, he’s a starter. He’s as much a starter as anybody, and we’ve had teams deeper than that, but I’m glad he’s with us. I really appreciate a number of years ago when Lamonte Turner and Jordan Bowden said if he decides to transfer, he’s one of us. And what he’s been able to do in two years is really a compliment to who he is.
His dad is on the staff, and if you have been around his family, you know what he’s about and it’s never been about him. All he’s wanted to do was play his role and he’s done it as well as anyone can do it.”
7 Responses
It is easy to be gracious when you win. You HAVE to be critical when you don’t. Tennessee was more prepared and ready to play than we were. Why doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t happen again. You ALWAYS come ready to play. If you get beat by a better team, so be it, but you NEVER lose a game because you didn’t come ready to play. That blame falls on both our coaches and the players. One could think that Tennessee had 3 days of grueling practice and we spent 3 days sitting in a circle singing Coom By Yah. You would have thought that playing for a spot in the Elite 8 would have been motivation enough. It was for Tennessee. It was almost like we thought we didn’t belong in that game and maybe we didn’t. but that is history now. On to next season. Learn from the mistakes made this season and hope for better luck with injuries next season.
Barry just appreciate the season we had no sense pointing fingers at the coach and the players.
We did have a decent season with all things considered but we can’t afford to make these mistakes again next season. Pope is the right man for this job, but he made mistakes too. Hopefully, he will learn from them.
“Kumbaya” 🙂
Tennessee both on offense and defense played a complete game. To me it felt like they were up 30 points all night. When UK did play really good on defense UT God the offensive rebound. Very deflating.
I expected the result but not total domination. The game wasn’t as close as the final score. Barnes had a gameplan and his team executed it to a T. I am not sure what Pope’s gameplan was but little to know execution. We did have a good year and it turned out better than I think most of us would have expected. Last night was not UK basketball, and it was decided within the first 10 minutes. When Amari shot that first air ball like a dart I was hoping he wasn’t setting the tone for the night. UT had the fight and intensity, and we looked totally clueless like we have a lot of other times this year. Again, I would like to know who really got better during the year? This game was a rinse and repeat of many others I.e., we don’t pass that well, we don’t have good interior offense or defense. We have allowed dribble drive penetration all year. Jax was the only one that could come into the key and hit a jumper with consistency. We were never really able to develope a bench. We had 6 points off the bench, and they had 23. All year long we had too many players that would only bring it a half game at a time. Carr was one of the frequent flyers there. He had 1 pt and 1 board first half. Garrison and Almonor were MIA again except for a good shot here or there. I felt that at beginning of the year I would be very satisfied if we got 20 wins and we did, but the way we went out last night should not be acceptable. Last night was a double whammy. We lost to our hated rival and also lost Dent who some sources projected UK to be the front runner for his services.
How many.of.you.are head coaches at a premier university?
That’s what I thought…shut up…
RWVick
UK class of 84 finance