Rick Barnes hopes Tennessee can build on road win at Alabama
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Losers of two straight heading into Saturday night’s clash with Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Tennessee was in desperate need of a positive result to right the ship on Rocky Top.
And the Volunteers got just that when Rick Barnes’ club outlasted Alabama for a hard-earned 79-73 win that brought the program back to .500 in SEC play.
Following the upset win, Barnes met with the media to recap the game and emphasize the need for his team to build off the result. He continually harped on how his younger players (Nate Ament, Bishop Boswell, Amari Evans, etc.) are actively learning about what it takes to consistently win in this conference.
“I think the biggest thing is young guys don’t realize how hard it is to win. And if you go into a game in this league, you have to go in expecting it to be a dog fight right to the very end. If you’re not ready to play, any team in this league can embarrass you,” Barnes said. “There’s got to be a mindset that you’re going to have to work the game and stay on top of it. When somebody beats us, they beat us. And every coach goes back and looks at it and says, ‘Well, if we’d have done this or that.’ No kidding, but we didn’t do it. Sometimes the opponents have something to do with that, sometimes they’re self-inflicted wounds.”
Barnes went on to explain that he believes the off week Tennessee had played a large factor in the team’s improved play, as he put them through a tougher slate of practices and believes they came out the better for it.
“But I hope that, again, the best part was we had a really hard week this past week, and I really felt that we came out tonight and what we’ve worked on, showed up here tonight,” Barnes said. “And hopefully it’s something we can build on, but it’s not gonna be easy. It’s never gonna be easy, and I hope they understand that.”
To Barnes’ point, things don’t get any easier for the Vols. A road date to face a surging Georgia squad looms on Wednesday, while Auburn will visit Knoxville on Saturday night fresh off an upset win over Florida.
Parker is currently the sports editor for the Enterprise-Journal in McComb, Mississippi. He's a graduate from Mizzou who has experience covering the Tiger football and basketball beats for SB Nation, and he's worked for a variety of sports news outlets in the past.
