From his courtside seat inside Food City Center, the soft-spoken Jordan Gainey is unassuming.

At Tennessee's basketball media day, just weeks before the preseason No. 12 Vols try and carry the momentum of a historic run into a new season, Gainey talks about his teammates, crediting them in all of his answers to questions about his own improvement.

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In practice, there's a more firey side to Gainey that those teammates see.

"It's always been back-and-forth. It's always been us battling," senior guard Zakai Zeigler said. "It's always been us battling. If we play three games and somebody wins two, we're going to play seven more games. That's just how it is between me and him...It's really a never-ending rivalry."

Gainey, who transferred to Tennessee ahead of last season after beginning his career at USC Upstate, is in position to show that came competitiveness in games.

He was a spark plug offensively off of the bench for the Vols during their SEC title and NCAA Tournament Elite Eight run last season, averaging more than 18 minutes per game and scoring 11 or more points in nine games, including in four league games.

But it is where he has developed on the defensive end that has set the stage for an even bigger role for Gainey in his second year in the program.

"I had a long ways to go when I first got here," Gainey said. "I thought I was defending, but I wasn't doing it at the highest level. I still have a ways to go now, but I'm learning everything single day."

Gainey knew better than most newcomers that he had to be more than a contributor on just one end of the floor.

The understanding of the emphasis of playing elite defense at Tennessee was likely picked up long before arrived on campus thanks to his father Justin Gainey being an assistant coach on Rick Barnes' staff.

It also helped that he played alongside two of Barnes' best defenders in veteran guards Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James. Both of those players are gone, but Gainey absorbed all he could in the season they were together.

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"(I learned) Really just being able to anticipate," Gainey said. "Anticipating the pass, anticipating where your man is going to be and trying to have active hands at all times because you never know what's coming your way."

Improvement as a defender has hardly hindered Gainey's ability to score. He has just learned to balance both.

Senior guard Jahmai Mashack, who is perhaps an advocate none better to have when it comes to playing defense noticed the change in Gainey's approach when the teams returned for summer workouts.

"He's able to (play defense) now from play-to-play-to-play. Over and over again in how many minutes he wants to play," Mashack said. "The hard thing for guys that can score like for J.G. is being able to defense and score at the same time. When you're putting that much effort on the offensive end, you're tired on the defensive end.

"I think this summer he showed that he can defend at a high enough level where he can carry that over to his offensive game and still score the way he wants to score. It's going to help a lot."

The way Tennessee's season ended may have played a part in the way Gainey approached the offseason.

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After the emotions settled on a season-ending defeat at the hands of 1-seed Purdue one game shy of the Vols' first-ever Final Four berth, Gainey started thinking about the next season.

He had proven valuable off of the bench, but being complete with and without the ball was an incentive to turn up his intensity--the same kind of intensity Zeigler saw in those 1-on-1 battles in practice.

"We put a chip on our shoulder," Gainey said. "We've had that mentality ever since we stepped foot back on campus. Really in May when we started our workouts again, just making sure I'm intent with all of our workouts and making sure I'm getting 1% better each day.”

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