No. 11 Tennessee men’s basketball got past Tennessee State 83-78, on Friday night. Head coach Rick Barnes spent his postgame press conference on what went wrong. The Vols were outrebounded by a slight 45-43 margin, and they gave up 24 offensive rebounds.

Barnes also pointed to 17 turnovers and the fact that these were the same problems Tennessee had after the Duke exhibition. The Vols also committed 24 team fouls with DeWayne Brown and Jalen Haralson fouling out. Brown only played 8:25 and scored no points, with one rebound, one steal and two blocks.

Barnes said his roster of 13 new players still doesn’t understand that playing hard is a talent and not a given. Here’s everything Barnes said.

What does Nolan Smith do that makes them so tough to play against physically, and how did that change your preparation?

“We don’t change. We prepare, and we don’t ever take any team lightly. One thing I would say is that our goal tonight was to play harder than we’ve ever played before, but we weren’t the hardest playing team tonight. Tennessee State played harder. I thought they were better coached. I thought they executed better. And our guys don’t understand yet. We’re not good enough that we can’t compete. We have to compete first. And we don’t execute offensively. Nothing like what we do in practice. We know that. 

“We knew that we would have some struggles early because, one, these guys have no idea what it takes to play and win at the highest level. And we knew with 13 new players, and I think only two other teams have that many players, it would take a while. But we thought with the practice we had through the summer, and you would think after the Duke game they would understand. First of all, playing hard is not a given. It’s a talent. I was impressed with Tennessee State tonight, but we knew they would play hard. We told our guys they’ll play as hard as anything we’ve played all year. They’re going to go at it. They’re going to really rebound the ball. 

“And then we start the game, and DeWayne wasn’t ready to play and was a non-factor. Then Miles gets in foul trouble. I thought Braedan Lue really went out and fought. But our guards haven’t understood yet. We need our guards and wings to be as aggressive as Tennessee State tonight. That’s what we need. We’ve talked about it way too much. At some point in time you hope it takes hold, but it hasn’t yet.”

What has to happen to clean up the turnovers after 17 tonight?

“Again, just careless. Guys that don’t understand basketball when you turn the ball over, especially when you have a reputation of being a good offensive player. Good offensive players don’t turn the ball over. First of all, good offensive players want to get shots. And then it goes back to lack of organization. We haven’t had anybody yet from the point guard position take control and want to run the team. I don’t think they’re selfish. I think they’ve been able to do what they want to do, which is put their head down and try to score the ball. 

“We still have some guys that can’t execute. We didn’t execute the very first play of the game tonight. And we come out of a timeout, got a play on for a player. He’s got the ball in his hand, and he calls a whole different play. That’s the issue that we’re dealing with right now, and that’s where we’ve got to get better.”

You expected early-season struggles with so many newcomers. Is it worse than you anticipated with guys missing shots they normally make?

“Some of the free throws we missed with guys that are good free throw shooters. The rebounding. Again, we can talk about technique and all that, but it’s a want-to. I think I told you guys last game, too many guys at the end of the game, all they want to look at is points and think that’s how they impact the game. Well, again, we gave up 24 offensive rebounds. Again, I think five on one possession. 

“Until the mindset shifts. I don’t know if they’ve ever been asked to rebound. I don’t know. I know that we’ve been asking for four and a half, five months now. And you would think, first of all, after the Duke game that there would be a lesson here that we can’t ever not play hard. We can’t ever get outrebounded night in and night out. I don’t even think you have to say that. But it’s a mindset. It is what it is. I like these guys. 

“Our job is, we’ve got to keep coaching them. We’re breaking habits, trying to create new habits. But somewhere along the line, it’s got to come from within. We’ve got to get some leadership. We haven’t gotten that yet the way we need it on the court in terms of who’s going to take command and do what we need to do. We haven’t gotten that yet.”

Juke Harris led Tennessee with 10 rebounds. What did you think of his contributions on the glass?

“Believe me, I’d take that every night over 25 points. I really would. We need him to get that done. We need Jalen Haralson to do his part there. I think the guards, even the point guards, they’ve got to go rebound the basketball when we’re on the defensive end. You cannot be even a good team, and right now we’re an average team. 

“If you can’t close the possession out by rebounding the ball, you’re an average team at best. And when you give up 24 offensive rebounds, that’s what I would say. Even if you guard them and force them into a bad shot or a tough shot with the clock coming down, you give up an offensive rebound, you’re not very good. You lose the possession. We haven’t been able to learn to finish plays defensively yet. And offensively, we don’t do enough.”

How discouraging is it to still be talking about rebounding and effort issues after Duke? Weeks later.

“I’m disappointed. Again, I think DeWayne Brown is better than that. We need him. We obviously need that. But we need Miles Rubin, too. He got in foul trouble, but you’re going to get in foul trouble when you’re always late to the party. Whether you’re coming up to set a ball screen, shot goes up, you turn and you’ve got somebody playing hard that runs by you because you’re not alert enough. You grab them, you push them. And again, that’s where you’ve got to give Tennessee State credit for simply having a more competitive attitude, because they did. I thought they outcompeted us tonight.”

What did you learn about how your team responded with DeWayne Brown struggling?

“Again, I thought Braedan Lue did a good job. I thought he went in and tried to do everything he could. I really do. I thought he fought to rebound, and Juke stepped up to get 10 rebounds. We needed that. But it’s the mistakes our guards keep making. Stopping the ball from moving. Guys get the ball and go to the dribble too quick. 

“We ran a play tonight where DeWayne was wide open, and the guards didn’t even once look at him. You look at the numbers, our post guys never touch the ball, and that’s on the guards. It’s up to the guards to get those post guys in there. But tonight, between DeWayne and Miles, they weren’t very effective at all, obviously, because they let the speed, the quickness and the toughness of Tennessee State put them in foul trouble.”

You focused on defense coming into the season. Did you expect to have these kinds of difficulties on the offensive end?

“Absolutely. Because again, when you get guys that think they’re great offensive players, they only look at the stat sheet. They look at one thing. And there’s nights when you’re not going to make shots. This game is about winning. It’s not about, ‘I feel good, I got 18 points.’ The first thing I pick up is the stat sheet. ‘Well, I got 18 points.’ But I will go back and say this. We haven’t always recruited a lot of defensive players. We’ve just had a lot of guys buy into it. I told somebody the other night, they said, ‘You’ve always recruited defensive players.’ I could count on one hand how many times we’ve recruited them. 

“We’ve always tried to recruit some guys that can score some points. But we think if we get a group of guys that will listen, we’ll be OK. If they’ll listen and understand that we have to be a defensive team. We don’t have a post guy we can just throw the ball into and say, ‘Hey, go get it.’ We can’t. So with that said, we should get a shot every time if you think about it, knowing that we need to do that. I think DeWayne can score. He proved it a year ago. I think Miles can, but nobody’s going to let him do it. And you’d think with our players, like tonight, they weren’t leaving Tyler. They were really giving us a chance to play 4-on-4. 

“We had a chance to get two lobs tonight because on the back side they were hugged up against Tyler, and our point guard comes off and doesn’t even see it. And when you don’t see it, it’s because you’ve got your mind in the wrong place. You’ve got to get your reads down. It’s really pretty simple, to be quite honest with you. Or I think it is. But the fact is, I’ve seen them do it so often in practice, and you come out in the game and you don’t do it. It’s disappointing.”

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