Rick Barnes previews Tennessee-Appalachian State

On what makes Jaden Springer and Keon Johnson good sixth and seventh men:
“Again, we’ve talked about it, and we don’t care who starts. I think our lineup will change, because we’re going to keep basing it on performance. We really are still trying to figure out how to get the rotation the right way where everybody can be the most effective. When you look at what’s going on with the minutes, we’re more concerned about that. Guys keeping it between 26 to 28 minutes. To answer your question about those two guys, once they figure out everything—do they know everything about our scheme offensively and defensively? They don’t, and that’s something that they’re going to have to do. I mentioned that they have been hurt more so by the stops and starts than anybody. It’s not that we’re doing a whole lot of different things than we’ve done in the past. It’s something that most of the older guys have seen so they have great recall with it. The younger guys are still learning the base package. I do think their minutes will go up. I don’t think there is any question about that. I can see them starting at one point. It can be both of them or one of them. What we’ve harped on with these guys is just do your job when you go in the game. Players, I’ve always believed they will determine who’s going to be there. Who’s going to play the minutes? They’re going to determine who’s going to finish the game, and I think these next couple of games before we get into the conference are critical to these guys to understand, regardless of who we’re playing, it’s about us and each and everybody doing their job so we can get to the point where we know what we’re going to get night in and night out.”