On Sunday, Tennessee basketball will travel to East Lansing to face Michigan State in an exhibition.

The proceeds from the event will benefit the wildfires in Maui as the teams square off with fans in attendance weeks before beginning the regular season.

On Wednesday, Vols head coach Rick Barnes and forward Josiah-Jordan James gave their thoughts on the upcoming match.

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How the team is treating the scrimmage

"I think we we're looking to see how many guys we can get with a sustained effort. Obviously, you would expect your older guys to be able to go out play through cardio, fatigue more. I think the young guys will be a little bit anxious. I think we're all ready to play outside competition. Open to see that we can do a lot of things that we practice. But we'll play hard. We know Michigan State will play hard. I think they have an exhibition tonight. Then, from there, we'll go out and want to everybody a look. From our point of view, we want to execute. Every time you go out, you want to win a basketball game. Whether it's an exhibition game or not. We want to see the effort and concentration we're trying to build to."

The importance on going through an opponent scout in an exhibition

'That's why we do it, even if it were non-televised game like it was a year ago or a closed scrimmage, that's why we do this. We will have a dry run through all of it. Last Saturday, we tried to do what the pregame warmup would be like for each team. We also did that and we played 40 minutes and that's the first time we've gone 40 minutes all year. That's part of that, too. Two games, right here, two exhibition games. Where we treat them as a regular season game from our scout, to our personnel, everything to see if we get the concentration that we're looking for from the beginning. And let them understand how important it is to pay attention to what the coaches are doing to try to help to be ready for what they're going to see."

Who will be available and who won't be for the exhibition

"(Santiago Vescovi) won't. His grandmother is not doing well. He's going to leave tomorrow to go back home. She's very, very ill right now. He'd like to be with his family so he's leaving tomorrow to go back to Uruguay.

I think we won't know with (Zakai Zeigler) until probably Saturday when we get through a practice and when he's been fully cleared. He's starting to do more in practice. You know, yesterday, he pretty much went through the majority of practice, yesterday. I think he'll do a lot today in the scrimmage when we get going today. That will be determined sometime, probably Saturday, to be quite frank and how he does there.

Regardless, I think that, you know with our new guys, it's going to be a great experience for them. When you're talking about Santi and Zakai, you're talking about two guys that are elite defenders. Two guys that know what we want to do. Guys that bring speed to the court they're there. They change the court. We know last year, Zakai got hurt, one thing we wanted to do is get our depth right so we can deal with situations like this that ran. It's going to get those guys probably a chance to play more than they're ready for. Those guys don't play because I don't think they're ready to play four minutes all out on both ends yet. Younger guys, they're not. Getting it on film and letting them see it, will probably grab their attention probably as much as I try to show them every day with film and everything. Games are different. We'll see. I'm excited for it. I'm excited for our young guys to see how they respond to it."

The difference in playing in front of a crowd

"It is. I like it. I like to think with where we're going with college basketball, right now. I do think that it's just a matter of time before our league goes to 20 conference games. Every time you hear that, everybody says, 'Well, you lose the chance to play these intersectional games and whatever.' That's why I've always believed that we should be allowed to play two exhibition games in front of an arena to get all that going. It'll only help us. It's going to be different because last year we did this game and there was nobody in the building. And it's different as when it's there. I think everybody is excited when people are in the stands, watching the games.

And you know, you really don't know what you're doing. When we scrimmage ourselves, there's no subs as much as we want our guys to fight fatigue and get through it, it's hard. Because we've had a couple scrimmages now where we literally had a sub that we've had to move back on both teams and it's hard to get the guys at that level. So the exhibition games are good.

Plus, I think it would be great for referees. I think referees need to be in games like that. As opposed to, we will have referees here today, it's not the same as when you go outside competitions.

Moving forward and you have a cause like we're playing for this year with the Maui Classic and doing this for the Maui Fund. I appreciate what Michigan State has done. I know their fan base, they love their basketball team and their basketball program and (Tom Izzo). He jumped on it right away. He thought it was a great idea. Being on the Big Ten Network. I know they're going to do a great production or different things throughout the game. He and I are going to talk I guess during the game at some point. It's going to be a different kind of production which all that stuff is going to be good for TV going forward.

And I like the exhibition games and I've always thought we need a couple of those. Especially in college basketball, you think about it. If everybody decided we want to help one cause, whatever it may be, everybody can play two exhibition games and the funds can go toward something like that. I think it would be great. Not only for the teams, but for the officials and college basketball in general."

Him and Tom Izzo being interviewed during the game

"I think we're gonna be mic'ed up. It's kind of what we did with Gonzaga. Remember, a year ago, I think they and Fran interviewed me a little bit during the game. I think it's gonna be the same kind of deal like that. They're going to do some different things. And honestly, when they call to ask, I just simply said, 'Hey, if Tom wants to do it, I'm all for it.' Because I've got so much respect for him. The kind of person he is and the way he's built this program and the way he's sustained this program. Hes been a model of what coaching should be about.

We're going to go play it. We're going to go up and try to play the best we can play and try to win a basketball game. And his team will do the same thing but we both know we've got things we've got to see get done. I know both teams are going to scrimmage hard."

Seeing newcomers in the exhibition

"I'm very excited. That game on Sunday will tell us a lot. Both ends of the floor, offensively and defensively. Michigan State is a tough, hard-nosed team just like ourselves but it's just wearing a different jersey. So, I'm excited to play against guys who aren't wearing Tennessee uniforms. I know everybody in the locker room is. It'll tell us a lot about where we're at and how we can improve."

On the exhibition being on the road

"I think it tells you a lot. Especially who've never been in a college atmosphere let alone a college road atmosphere. I'm glad the fans are allowed to come this year. I'm excited. I know everybody is going to be prepared but obviously there's nerves and things you can't emulate in practice without fans. Especially hostile fans. So, I'm looking forward to it."

On playing a power-five team

"I would just say, maybe the competitive level. Sometimes, in the past, when we haven't scrimmaged a power-five team, kind of a division two, division three team, it's not as competitive as maybe you want it to be. But I know Michigan State, based on what they were able to do last year and how our scrimmage went last year, it'll be very competitive."

Newcomers getting more play time without Vescovi

"It'll be really good. Obviously, very sad that Santi won't be out there, but it'll be really good for other guys to step up because we know what we're going to get out of him each and every night. But for guys who haven't been in the fire on the road before, it'll be a good test for them against a great competitive defensive team that we know is going to come ready to play."

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