Tennessee (14-5, 7-5 SEC) lost to LSU, 78-65, Saturday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Following the contest, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes discussed his team’s performance. Below is a transcript provided by the University of Tennessee.
On where the defense came up short:
“I think one on one defense—normally we do a good job at guarding sets, but we just did not do a very good job with our one on one defense. We don’t ever want to leave someone on an island by themselves. I didn’t think we did a great job getting in to our gaps to help, and I also felt like because our offense wasn’t what we wanted it to be, that hurt our defense today as well—to keep some pressure there to feel the need to score when they come down. One on one defense wasn’t very good, and we fouled shooters a couple of times where we didn’t need to do that. I don’t quite get it. I didn’t think we listened today. Our team, the young guys are learning obviously. We told them that you’re not going to be able to drive and spin—because people are going to come do that. It took us to long time to adjust with that, but we still need more from other players. We can’t ask Keon (Johnson)and Jaden (Springer) to guard the other team’s best players and then come down and end up with the ball in their hands because other guys aren’t trying to get involved when we aren’t executing the way we need to execute.”
NEXT: Rick Barnes postgame continued