No. 8 Tennessee men’s basketball is heading east to Durham, North Carolina, on Tuesday for an exhibition game with the No. 2 Duke Blue Devils. It is another shot for the Vols to work on themselves before the real thing begins on Nov. 3.
Monday morning, head coach Rick Barnes addressed the media. Over the last few days, I have wondered about a couple of things. The first was how the team bought in and responded to its 86-70 loss to Xavier. While exhibitions don’t count, there is still a will to win them, and a few things were exposed.
This team has taken full ownership and knows the work that has to take place. Barnes gave no indication of anything otherwise. Despite their experience, these players are still learning how to do things the best way together. That is always a risk and possible side effect with a team full of transfers, but Barnes wholeheartedly believes things will come together.
“I think everything is good,” Barnes told me Monday morning. “We know that we’ve got a lot to learn just by playing against somebody else. There were some things in the first half that were good. We should’ve scored more points than we did in the first half. The second half, it really got down to when we hit some adversity, we just stopped altogether playing defense and rebounding, just think we’re gonna shoot the ball and think that’s gonna be good enough.
“We knew that would rear its head at some point in time. We knew that, and that’s why I love these exhibition games, because you get a chance to let those things happen. Obviously, we’ve got a good group of guys. They wanna learn, but they don’t know what they don’t know right now.”
Barnes has been vocal about taking care of all phases of the game. A team full of high-level scorers has to lock in on both ends, and it also can’t let a tough stretch in the game affect the rest. Tennessee got a quick reality check on what happens when the shots don’t fall and the defense is lacking.
“I thought that everybody thought, ‘Okay, I gotta go score quick and make something happen.’ And first of all, Xavier’s a good basketball team,” Barnes said. “That’s why we love playing those teams, because we do want to get exposed in these exhibition games. There’s no doubt. If you win, you win. But I’d rather get exposed more than winning a basketball game right now, because as much as we harp on these things, sometimes it takes exposure like that to really grab their attention.”
Tennessee guard Dai Dai Ames also spoke with us Monday morning, and he said the issues against Xavier went beyond one area.
“Yeah, I’d say it was a lot of stuff for real,” Ames said. “But we went to practice, we worked on all that stuff, and next time we hop on the court, it’s gonna be better.”
My second question had to do with the limited size depth, and importance of staying out of foul trouble. Miles Rubin is a 6-foot-10 senior center from Loyola Chicago. Nobody knows when Jalen Washington will return. Until then, Tennessee really can’t afford careless or haphazard defense from the bigs it does have. Rubin played more than 13 minutes, but it came with early foul trouble. He picked up two quick fouls in the first half and a third just seconds into the second half. That can’t happen, and Barnes explained what went into that.
“Well, it goes back to him,” Barnes said. “Again, his way doesn’t work. He’s wanting to try to steal the ball instead of playing position. At this level, guys are gonna catch the ball. You just hope that when you catch them, then you got to guard it.
“You try to force them off. It’s a game of space, trying to force them off their space. But when you are fouling to do that, it’s not any good. And he doesn’t understand doing his work early yet, and he’s always playing catch-up, playing from behind, and that’s what gets him in foul trouble.”
That issue will be tested right away. Duke opened its preseason with a 102-62 win over Belmont in a scrimmage on Oct. 8, with five players scoring in double figures. The Blue Devils started 6-foot-4 Cayden Boozer, 6-foot-5 John Blackwell, 6-foot-8 Dame Sarr, 6-foot-11 Patrick Ngongba II and 7-foot-2 freshman Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje. Sarr and Boumtje Boumtje led the way with 19 points each, while Boumtje Boumtje and Ngongba each grabbed seven rebounds.
Tuesday will be a major test, and everyone will see what type of improvements have been made in a few short days. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. ET at Cameron Indoor Stadium. You can catch the action on ACC Network.
