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Tennessee men's basketball guard Tyler Lundblade met with the media to discuss the Volunteers' early-season development, the importance of defensive communication and the challenges of building chemistry with a roster featuring 13 newcomers.
The veteran guard also shared his perspective on Tennessee's offensive adjustments, his leadership role and his involvement in developing a proposed collective bargaining agreement (CBA) framework for college athletics. Lundblade addressed the team's upcoming schedule, including a matchup with Michigan State, and expressed confidence in his teammates as the Volunteers continue working toward consistency on both ends of the floor.
"I think for us, the film doesn't lie, and a lot of our mistakes defensively are clearly from a lack of communication. So I think it's just been more of an emphasis like, 'Yo, all right, we may not know exactly what we need to do in this scramble situation, but if we just talk and play hard, that's going to solve 99% of your problems.' And so I think just getting guys out of their comfort zone talking isn't natural for a lot of the guys so that being more of an emphasis in practice has been good for us."
"I think just consistency. Some days in practice were great, some days in practice were not. I think the buy-in is there, and the emphasis obviously has been there in practice and in film sessions, but I think for us it's: 'All right, can we do that every rep in practice, every day in practice, now show up every game, every four-minute segment in the game, every half, and put together full games, and then stack games on top of games?' I think that's the next step for us."
"It was really cool. Whenever it started in the summer, when Danny came and met with us for the first time, I was like, 'Well, this could be pretty groundbreaking or pretty cool to be a part of.' I didn't think I'd end up going on Stephen A. Smith a couple months later having the feedback that we got, and it's really cool.
"I think that's a really big step for college athletics. There's a lot of legal hurdles, but I don't see a reason why a CBA couldn't work in college sports, especially given that college sports are pretty much professional sports, and it's worked in every sports league.
"So it was really cool to be a part of and to work on it pretty much every week the entire summer and fall. Joining Zooms on Friday nights and doing all that kind of stuff was a grind, but it was fun, and it's really cool to see where it is now."
"Well, I think the PCSA the Protect College Sports Act—probably put a little bit of an emphasis on it. It didn't rush our process, but I think that getting a lot of traction maybe sped the process up for others.
"But I think now it's a perfect time, especially with... I saw a tweet of Furman teammates, and one's eligible, one's not. Jaylen's ineligible on our team, but Texas Tech—half their team is all extra-year guys. So I think we just need a level playing field and some solidified rules across the entire country."
"It was all business. I was on the Zoom like five minutes early and the producer was testing the audio, and then he joined, said, 'What's up?' 5-4-3-2-1, we did the interview, and then he was gone. So yeah, it was pretty cool, but all business."
"If I could have that long of an NBA career, I'd probably be pretty happy. But I've been in college, I've been around, I've seen it all. And so I think that's what I try to bring especially, I think Coach said it the other day kind of being like a grounding force, like a peace during the games when they could be so chaotic.
"I try to just stay pretty even-keeled, and I think it rubs off on our guys. So I just try to bring all the experience I've had—maybe it's something I picked up from Jank at SMU, or Coach Dixon at TCU, or Casey at Belmont—anything that can help."
"Leadership has probably been one of my natural characteristics, and I think I'm the only guy on this team that's been a captain before in college last year at Belmont.
"And so that was honestly one of my earlier conversations with Coach in the summer was, 'Yeah, I want to fill that captain role, that leadership role.' And it was unfortunate losing the whole summer being out, so you can't really earn it being on the floor, but staying around coaching and being super involved still.
"And now that I'm back out there, I think it's kind of natural for me to fill that role. Like I said, I'm an older guy, I've seen it all. I think I have a bank of basketball knowledge to pass off to guys that are here especially since we brought in a ton of talent, but a lot of our guys are still young."
"I think that's just going to take time. With 13 new guys, it's going to take a lot of time to mesh and learn each other, and we're all in a new offense for us—not new to Coach obviously—but that takes time.
"I'm not worried about missing shots early. We're going to make shots. So as long as we're getting good ones and not turning the ball over, I think that's going to sort itself out."
"I think honestly one of our problems is that we're too unselfish at times like we pass the ball too much. When we turn down a good shot to try to get a better one, sometimes that hurts offense.
Coach said this to us yesterday, there's not a selfish player on this team. We're just trying to find the balance of turning down good for great, but also being aggressive, being ourselves, and doing what got us here."
"I think so. It's human nature to know what's ahead on the schedule, but we have a good one in front of us tomorrow. And we know that if we don't take the right steps to put out a good performance tomorrow, then it's not worth even thinking about Michigan State in a couple days.
"But yeah, a sense of urgency probably. I think we know that we just have to get better as a team, and tomorrow is another good opportunity to do that."
"Just being there for him. We talked about this yesterday I don't think anybody on this team can relate to the pressure that he feels put on by the media or whatever. But it's two games. He's such a good offensive player. "Like I said earlier, we're not worried about shots not falling. You look across the country, there's a lot of really good players that aren't shooting the ball well to start the year. So we're not worried about it.
"We've got his back, and we want him to score. We want him to be aggressive; we need him to do that. Keeping him aggressive in practice, getting to his shots, and playing his game, that's good for us and good for him. We've got his back, and it'll come around. We're not worried about it."
Rick Barnes and the Tennessee squad have a big test next Tuesday. When they face No. 5 Michigan State. The Spartans defeated Duke who was ranked No. 2 at the time, 79-73 on November 10.
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