Shock to vols:Tennessee Basketball head coach Rick Barnes give up for New Season enrollment..
Tennessee Basketball head coach Rick Barnes give up for New Season enrollment..
new sporting season is soon on the horizon, and Tennessee basketball head coach Rick Barnes spoke to the media Tuesday afternoon to discuss what is ahead.
Barnes heads into his 10th season as head coach of the Vols while the basketball team tipped off its first official day of practice with new names and faces on campus.
“We’ve had good leadership and I think the fact that these guys that haven’t been here came in and if they had an ego,” Barnes said. “They put it aside and they’ve been willing to learn, not only from the coaches but from their teammates.”
Here are some takeaways from the availability.
New look roster
A new season means turnover inside the roster. Multiple-year staples Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James exhausted their eligibility, while SEC Player of the Year Dalton Knecht moved on to the NBA. Other contributors Jonas Aidoo, Tobe Awaka, Freddie Dilione V and DJ Jefferson left via the transfer portal.
Through the loss of many minutes, Barnes had to attack the transfer portal for new additions. He brought in high-profile transfers with Igor Milicic Jr., Darlinstone Dubar, Felix Okpara and Chaz Lanier to replace the losses.
“I think all (four) of our guys this year, we obviously had a lot of confidence with them coming in,” Barnes said. “And I can say this, that none of them had disappointed us. We knew it would be an adjustment for all of them.”
Milicic comes by way of Charlotte, Dubar from Hofstra, Okpara out of Ohio State and Lanier through North Florida. Each of the newcomers has a different background and experiences at the playing level. The only recruit in the freshman class was combo guard Bishop Boswell who prepped in North Carolina.
“Understanding regardless of where they went, they were all (four) going into a new situation,” Barnes said. “And even to throw Bishop into that being the only freshman that we signed. I mean, it was going to be totally new to them. And regardless of how long they’d been in school and college and high school, that it’s a different game in the way the speed that we want to play with, the work ethic that we like from our players.”
In order to adapt the players to a new system, Barnes has leaned on his veterans to show the way things are done at Tennessee.
“Our older guys have a lot to do with their growth by telling them, ‘Hey, this is how we do it,’” Barnes said. “And we’ve always talked about when your older guys can really be the ones that help you through the coaching process. It makes it easier on everybody and our older guys did a good job of that.”
