Rick Barnes previews Tennessee-Appalachian State

On what he has liked the most about his team after the first two games:
“I think our defensive effort has been good. We’ve played two really good basketball teams who do some really good schemes, and they’ve got players. We know, because it’s no different than what we’ve done in the past. We play defense initially the way we should, and we lock in with our scouting report. We’re going to force teams into driving the ball. Then, we’ve got to be able to guard whoever’s in front of us. You stay in front of them. We can’t let them get on our hips and get to the rim. Through the first two games, I think we’ve done a good job for the most part doing what we’ve asked them to do. We talked a lot after the Colorado game, because Colorado started driving the ball. We said Cincinnati is going to drive it and they did. Offensively, we want to get fouled. We are a strong team. We are an athletic team. We’ve got a nice shooting percentage, but in-game I still think that some of those guys need to see it go through the basket a couple of times, and they’ll settle down that way. On nights when we don’t shoot the ball well, we proved the other night that we can still win a basketball game against a high-level team by doing it different ways. When it all comes together is what we’re working for, but if not, we still want to be a better rebounding team and a consistent rebounding team. We rebounded the ball great the other night. That has got to be a major emphasis. Every single night we’ve got to rebound the ball, we’ve got to take care of the ball. I mentioned the other night; the Colorado turnovers didn’t hurt us. The other night, our turnovers hurt us. Those are the plays that we have to eliminate. So, we need to take care of the ball better. It’s going to help us with our defense. Just take good shots. Take the shots that we practice, and I’m confident and I want them to shoot them whether they’re going in or not.”