Uros Plavsic's tough journey is beginning to pay off
Rick Barnes needed to change up the vibe of Tennessee’s team following its embarrassing 28-point loss to rival Kentucky on Saturday.
Barnes decided to do so for Tuesday night’s game against Vanderbilt in Nashville by removing sixth-year senior forward John Fulkerson from the starting lineup. Redshirt-junior forward Uros Plavsic made his seventh career start in place of Fulkerson.
The moved paid off for Barnes. In a 68-60 win over Vanderbilt, Plavsic turned in his best performance of the season with 13 points and seven rebounds, both season-highs. Plavsic did so on just 6-for-7 shooting while four of his rebounds came on the offensive glass.
“It feels really good,” Plavsic said following the win. “But this entire game was a team effort by everybody who started and came off the bench. We just wanted to make sure we all played hard. It was a big game for us with it being an in-state rival and you want to win those games.”
Plavsic has picked up his play since conference play began. Tennessee’s 7-footer is averaging 4.2 points and 3.1 rebounds in 12.1 minutes per game on the season, but in six SEC games so far, he’s averaging 6.5 points on 51.7% shooting from the field to go along with 5.3 rebounds in 16 minutes.
“He has strictly bought into the role that we need him to play,” Barnes said. “We tell him all the time if he will get in his head that he will play great defense for us, rebound the ball and on offense, we tried to limit him to a couple of areas on the floor where we want him to be effective. Then ball-screen defense, if he is not fatigued, he does a really good job there.
“I think him getting to play more, that has helped him. He has really simplified his thought process on the offensive end. He is taking more seriously what he needs to do on the defensive end.”
It showed last night. Not only on the stat sheet, but in crunch time as well.
Vanderbilt made a three to tie the game at 60 with 1:22 remaining. On Tennessee’s next possession, Zakai Zeigler missed a three, but Plavsic grabbed the offensive rebound and put it back in to give UT a 62-60 lead and spark an 8-0 run over the final minute to close out the win.
“Simplifying things is the main reason I’m in position to help this team win games now,” Plavsic said. “I had a lot of talks with the coaches and as soon as I started doing what they wanted me to do and understanding why they wanted me to has helped me be successful.
“Just going hard and I want to play physical. I want to be the guy on the court that does all of the dirty work.”
It hasn’t always been easy for Plavsic on Rocky Top.
The Serbian native had never seen a college basketball game when he moved to the United States in October 2017. But following a year of basketball at Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Plavsic signed with Arizona State.
It didn’t work out for Plavsic in the desert. He redshirted in 2018-19 and entered the transfer portal following the season before deciding to return to East Tennessee to play for the Vols.
“He is much different,” Barnes said. “He really is. That is a long complicated story with how his recruitment and everything went, his journey to get here… We wanted him from the get-go. We got him back. I am just really proud of him. We all are. He is an extremely well-liked guy on our team. He is very unselfish and even on those days when he wanted to play and didn’t get to play.
"On those days when I had a quick hook with him because I had a vision for him with the way I wanted him to play, to begin to build his game. When he broke away from that, took him out and said hey if you are going to be stubborn, I am going to win that battle. I said I promise you if you do exactly what we need you to do, it will work out for you. He has done it and he has continued to build on it. He has made some winning plays for us. He really played well in the Kentucky game. He really did. From what we asked him to do in that game, he really did a nice job and he came back and carried it over again tonight.”
Still, throughout it all, Plavsic always had a smile on his face and was the first to congratulate his teammates for their success even if he wasn’t playing as much as he would have liked.
“It’s been tough,” Plavsic recalled. “You just have to wait for your opportunity and if you’re not happy with other people’s success I don’t think you will ever be successful. If I see my teammates doing good on and off the floor, I’m going to support that and be happy for them no matter what situation I’m in at the moment.
“I’m not a selfish guy. I want everybody on this team to make it and play good. If everybody could go score 20 points and have 20 rebounds, I would love that.”
No. 24 Tennessee (12-5, 3-3) is back in action on Saturday night when No. 13 LSU (15-2) comes to Knoxville for a 6 p.m. ET tip on ESPN. The Tigers beat the Vols 79-67 in Baton Rouge two weeks ago.