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Rick Barnes reflects on Tennessee’s improvements since blowout loss to Kentucky
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Tennessee will play for the SEC Tournament Championship on Sunday, facing Texas A&M after taking down Kentucky on Saturday. In part, the Volunteers owe their late-season success to a blowout loss earlier in the year.
On Jan. 15, Tennessee traveled to Lexington to face the Wildcats. It was a night to forget with Kentucky rolling to a 107-79 rout of Tennessee while shooting 68% from the field and 61% from 3-point range.
Saturday was a different story with the Volunteers holding Kentucky to a 34% shooting effort and 2-for-20 effort from 3-point range as Tennessee won 69-62. Tennessee also held the Wildcats to 63 points and 34% shooting during a win over Kentucky in February.
After Saturday’s win, head coach Rick Barnes was asked about lessons learned from that blowout loss. He admitted it was “a major learning game” for the Volunteers and Kennedy Chandler in particular.
“Did we do anything differently? Yeah. I thought it was a major learning game for Kennedy Chandler because he was as bad in that game as he has been in the other games, and he was at that point in time in the season he was still just trying to reach,” explained Barnes.
“I know people when they talk about defensive players, they look at skills and things like that, but we were having some good possessions. And then early in the game, he was responsible for the first six points in Lexington. And I think that was a major game for him to understand that when you play against the quality of players at this level that you’ve got to be solid throughout the possession, and then so that was — that and then they got it going, and it was a game where you turn them loose. They can do that, and they got loose.”
Barnes also went on to discuss how quickly games against a quality opponent can turn, even when Tennessee was playing well in Lexington:
“But even with that said, I think with a couple and what we showed our guys, with I think two minutes to go in that game, we were still only down four at halftime,” said Barnes. “And then they turned us over and took it up to 10, 12 real quick, and we never recovered, but Kentucky has had a great year.
“I mean, they are — I’ve said it, and I just think our league deserves so much more credit than it’s getting overall, but we’ve got teams in this league that now I’m hoping that once get into the big tournament that we can as a league show well, but it’s been a hard-fought regular season for all of us.”
After the win, Tennessee will face Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament Championship Game on Sunday. That game is slated for a 1 pm EST tip-off on ESPN.
Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
