INDIANAPOLIS — Tennessee basketball's season has concluded with a loss to Houston in the Elite Eight.
After the game, Vols coach Rick Barnes met with the media.
Here's what he said.
TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM
RICK BARNES: Again, congratulations to Kelvin and his Houston team. They were -- Houston, they do what they do. That's why they're where they are, that's the standard of their program. First half obviously got away from us. Their second-chance opportunities were big and we felt like we got some shots, but we didn't knock down some of those early, but we weren't able to get anything really inside. But, again, the second-chance points early, when you're shooting as poorly as we were, those were hard. The second-chance points are hard to overcome, but just incredibly blessed and grateful and have a chance to sit here with this group of guys, and there's 10,000 coaches that would love to be where we are right now. Even though we're disappointed with our loss, players would like to be sitting here. When you have two guys in particular who have been with us for four years and Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack, when we look back, I think they will be the two most accomplished Tennessee Volunteer players ever. We owe it to them to continue with the standard they have set, or even take it to another level. Our goal, like every team, would be to get back here and move forward. But, again, with Jordan coming in, just became part of the fabric very quickly.
It's tough because, as badly as we all want it, it always hurts if you don't get it all. I do know this: This team gave us every possible thing they could. Every day in practice, they represented the University of Tennessee the way we want it represented, and I can only count it as a major blessing from God that I got to spend the time I did with two of these guys for four years and Jordan for the last two. The other guys in the locker room, with the transfer portal, some of them never being through this, never being part of the NCAA Tournament, came into their role. Our walk-ons did an incredible job, some days only having eight guys in practice. We talk about a team, this team truly did, it's overused sometimes, but they really did become a family and they fought until the very end for each other.
Q. Coach, just as well as you guys handled Friday night, did you feel like that first half could happen as good as you played under the pressure?
RICK BARNES: No, I don't think you expect it to happen, you know? Again, I thought our coaches did the job that they always do, preparing our guys, and we came out and, again, we knew it would be difficult. We knew that they had an inside out game and we often -- you look at our team, mostly perimeter-oriented. We knew there would be a strong focus there. We knew they would honestly do exactly what they did. We dealt with it this year, you're hoping you're making some of those shots, but when you're not, you don't want to give up. We know they're an outstanding rebounding team. Take away just half of those in the first half and you make a couple -- and we had some looks. We didn't make them, but that's part of it. But even with that said, I still felt at halftime if we could go back and put some things together, but it's hard when you're not able to go inside and get some easier baskets or put some pressure on the rim. We have to do that with our penetration game, too, trying to get fouled. Obviously they keyed heavily on their guards, but I don't think you come out thinking it could happen. You come out expecting to play at a high level.
But we've been down before and I knew -- the one thing I did know, I knew our guys wouldn't quit playing. I knew we had to start scrambling because if you really watch the game closely, Houston is a possession team. They're going to come down and they're not worried about getting down the floor quick. They're going to run their sets and we wanted to take advantage of those first 10, 15 seconds of the clock and try to speed them up and turn them over. The shots they hit there at the end when we cut it down, that's the one you're giving up and hope they don't make it, and they did. But, again, the effort was there. Again, I just feel so hurt for these guys because, again, I know they wanted to do better and play better.
Q. Threes were hard to come by that first half, Zeigler hit one with 30 seconds to go and Houston came out and scored real quick, 21 down. Then you outscored them 18-10. Just talk about the drive and your players as you just commented on, they never quit.
RICK BARNES: If you know these guys, and we see it every day in practice and I've said it before, it's a blessing when you get to go to practice and not have to coach effort from your best players for certain. They're the ones that everybody looks at, but when you go out, that would be the least thing on my mind with these guys. It's never going to be about effort. It's going to be about them getting their teammates to understand the effort they had to play with to get us where we needed to go. When we were down, all you have to do is look in their eyes and know that they're disappointed, but they want to keep fighting, they want to keep doing it.
Like when Z came off, it hurt me because I knew how much he cared. He said "I'm sorry" but he's got nothing to be sorry about. He gave us everything. And what Shack said, I know those guys. They know I'm an older guy. They know I would love to win a National Championship, but they have absolutely not one thing to hang their head down or be sorry about because they had truly -- we have a slogan at Tennessee, give your all for Tennessee. They did that. In more ways than you can imagine. Regardless whether we were down 20 or 25, they would continue to give their all for the University of Tennessee because they're such a huge part of where this program is right now.
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