Game 10 Tennessee 67, NC State 58 November 24
Game 10 Tennessee 67, N.C. State 58 November 24, 2017 Tennessee Quotes
Tennessee Head Coach Rick Barnes Opening Statement: Wasn’t really a pretty game the first half, and I thought both teams played pretty hard defensively and both teams were kind of throwing the ball all over the place but I think that was guys really trying to make the effort defensively. I’m sure (NC State head coach) Kevin (Keatts), just like I did, knows that we’re better than that. The second half we did a better job of handling the basketball, getting the ball down the floor, attacking the press. [NC State is] the first team we played all year that showed us multiple defenses, and the first half we didn’t handle it well, and give them credit for that, but the second half we did a better job and Kyle (Alexander) came up with some big offensive rebounds that I think was a really was a huge difference in the game. If you look at it they outrebounded us – two games in a row that we’ve been outrebounded, but they had 17 offensive rebounds and we had 15 and Kyle had half of them. He was big and Grant (Williams) played a lot of minutes here. He got in foul trouble the first half, but we worked through that. It’s a nice win for us and we’ll leave here knowing a little bit more about our team, and know we have to get back and get back to our regular routine and go from there. On what he learned about his team during this tournament: Defensively we’ve been pretty consistent. We did a better job today of not fouling as much. We fouled too much in the first two games. Our fouls tonight, they shot 22 and we shot 28, but you always want to make more than your opponent shoots, but the fouls tonight were more around the basket than around the perimeter as we’d been doing. I just talked to our team – we know we’ve got some guys that are consistent, we can count on them, but for us to be the program we want to be, the other players on the bench are going to have to get more engaged, every minute counts. We need those guys, I don’t think there’s any question…we can get better, what can we take from it? That we can get better, and we can, and we will. On sophomore guard Jordon Bowden’s performance: He plays hard. He does try to play hard on both sides of the ball. The way we play is not the easiest thing because we’re playing 94 feet of defense and then our offense has a lot of movement to it. It’s not like we’re coming down and just standing, playing spread pick ‘n roll. We’re constant motion almost like running water, we want to just keep flowing. He followed and I thought he played with more confidence. The first half I almost felt like our guys felt this huge weight on them that we can’t lose this game, and you can’t play basketball like that. You’ve got to go out and play, and I know that they respected NC State, but that’s where
we’re still not mature yet to the point where we understand that when things aren’t going great that we have confidence in what we’re doing and stay with the system. We haven’t got there yet either, where we truly stay with our system the way that we need to. We still take some tough shots, but I thought the second half he made some really good shots in flow – inside out attack and when it left his hands it looked like it was going in. Sophomore F Grant Williams On the way Tennessee closed out the game: I feel like we executed, especially on the defensive end, that’s where the game ended because even though we might not have been able to run our offense, I know I missed three or four straight shots where I could’ve kicked it out or got a better look, but I know on the defensive end we got it back. Kyle did a great job coming in, blocking shots, there was a huge block on Braxton Beverly where he went full court, I think we were up six, and he came down and got the block. And after that we held them down to that two seconds on the shot clock and got a stop there, so just multiple stops is what we needed to do and I felt we did a good job with that. Junior F Kyle Alexander On playing three games in three days and how the team responded: I think fatigue does play a factor, but that’s the good thing about our team, we have a deep team with a lot of talented players. We have a lot of guys that can rotate in and out, but that’s the perks of practice. You practice harder than the game so that the games are a little bit easier. I think that we definitely prepared for stuff like that.
Game 10 Tennessee 67, N.C. State 58 November 24, 2017 N.C. State Quotes
N.C. State Head Coach Kevin Keatts Opening Statement:
“When I knew we were in this tournament, I was excited about the opportunity because I knew that it would give me the chance to figure out where my team is and what we need to work on. It’s an unbelievable tournament; it’s an amazing field when you talk about the eight teams that are in this tournament and any of these teams are capable of beating you. I’ll be able to take the film of these three games and kinda figure out where we need to go and the things we need to work on.” “For me as a coach, I think we’ve had a decent week even though we’re coming out of here with two losses. I say that because on the first night we did a tremendous job beating Arizona who is the #2 team in the country. When you look at the next two games, I felt that we were never out of the game. We had our opportunities to win both of those games but I do think that as a team early on with a new staff and a bunch of new players that we have to go back to the drawing board and now we gotta figure out how not to beat ourselves. That’s a good thing. I told my team in the locker room that every coach in this field has got to figure out how to get his team to play and work on the things they’re not successful at. “You’re never happy with a loss, but there are a lot of teaching points that I can get out of this and certainly we can get better as a team with some of the things that I saw.” “The win against Arizona was an unbelievable program-building win. It’s a culture-building win. It’s what I envisioned when I took over the program. That being said, I want more. Obviously, we would have loved to win the Northern Iowa game and also the game today against Tennessee but through all both of those I do feel like it’s enough stuff that I saw that we can improve on to become that team to beat
Senior F Lennard Freeman On the take away from the tournament: “It was a great experience. We had some positives and negatives and even though we’re walking away 1-2, both losses we can take some god out of it; great opportunities. We just gotta learn from it and we just gotta get better from here.”
Tennessee Head Coach Rick Barnes Opening Statement: Wasn’t really a pretty game the first half, and I thought both teams played pretty hard defensively and both teams were kind of throwing the ball all over the place but I think that was guys really trying to make the effort defensively. I’m sure (NC State head coach) Kevin (Keatts), just like I did, knows that we’re better than that. The second half we did a better job of handling the basketball, getting the ball down the floor, attacking the press. [NC State is] the first team we played all year that showed us multiple defenses, and the first half we didn’t handle it well, and give them credit for that, but the second half we did a better job and Kyle (Alexander) came up with some big offensive rebounds that I think was a really was a huge difference in the game. If you look at it they outrebounded us – two games in a row that we’ve been outrebounded, but they had 17 offensive rebounds and we had 15 and Kyle had half of them. He was big and Grant (Williams) played a lot of minutes here. He got in foul trouble the first half, but we worked through that. It’s a nice win for us and we’ll leave here knowing a little bit more about our team, and know we have to get back and get back to our regular routine and go from there. On what he learned about his team during this tournament: Defensively we’ve been pretty consistent. We did a better job today of not fouling as much. We fouled too much in the first two games. Our fouls tonight, they shot 22 and we shot 28, but you always want to make more than your opponent shoots, but the fouls tonight were more around the basket than around the perimeter as we’d been doing. I just talked to our team – we know we’ve got some guys that are consistent, we can count on them, but for us to be the program we want to be, the other players on the bench are going to have to get more engaged, every minute counts. We need those guys, I don’t think there’s any question…we can get better, what can we take from it? That we can get better, and we can, and we will. On sophomore guard Jordon Bowden’s performance: He plays hard. He does try to play hard on both sides of the ball. The way we play is not the easiest thing because we’re playing 94 feet of defense and then our offense has a lot of movement to it. It’s not like we’re coming down and just standing, playing spread pick ‘n roll. We’re constant motion almost like running water, we want to just keep flowing. He followed and I thought he played with more confidence. The first half I almost felt like our guys felt this huge weight on them that we can’t lose this game, and you can’t play basketball like that. You’ve got to go out and play, and I know that they respected NC State, but that’s where
we’re still not mature yet to the point where we understand that when things aren’t going great that we have confidence in what we’re doing and stay with the system. We haven’t got there yet either, where we truly stay with our system the way that we need to. We still take some tough shots, but I thought the second half he made some really good shots in flow – inside out attack and when it left his hands it looked like it was going in. Sophomore F Grant Williams On the way Tennessee closed out the game: I feel like we executed, especially on the defensive end, that’s where the game ended because even though we might not have been able to run our offense, I know I missed three or four straight shots where I could’ve kicked it out or got a better look, but I know on the defensive end we got it back. Kyle did a great job coming in, blocking shots, there was a huge block on Braxton Beverly where he went full court, I think we were up six, and he came down and got the block. And after that we held them down to that two seconds on the shot clock and got a stop there, so just multiple stops is what we needed to do and I felt we did a good job with that. Junior F Kyle Alexander On playing three games in three days and how the team responded: I think fatigue does play a factor, but that’s the good thing about our team, we have a deep team with a lot of talented players. We have a lot of guys that can rotate in and out, but that’s the perks of practice. You practice harder than the game so that the games are a little bit easier. I think that we definitely prepared for stuff like that.
Game 10 Tennessee 67, N.C. State 58 November 24, 2017 N.C. State Quotes
N.C. State Head Coach Kevin Keatts Opening Statement:
“When I knew we were in this tournament, I was excited about the opportunity because I knew that it would give me the chance to figure out where my team is and what we need to work on. It’s an unbelievable tournament; it’s an amazing field when you talk about the eight teams that are in this tournament and any of these teams are capable of beating you. I’ll be able to take the film of these three games and kinda figure out where we need to go and the things we need to work on.” “For me as a coach, I think we’ve had a decent week even though we’re coming out of here with two losses. I say that because on the first night we did a tremendous job beating Arizona who is the #2 team in the country. When you look at the next two games, I felt that we were never out of the game. We had our opportunities to win both of those games but I do think that as a team early on with a new staff and a bunch of new players that we have to go back to the drawing board and now we gotta figure out how not to beat ourselves. That’s a good thing. I told my team in the locker room that every coach in this field has got to figure out how to get his team to play and work on the things they’re not successful at. “You’re never happy with a loss, but there are a lot of teaching points that I can get out of this and certainly we can get better as a team with some of the things that I saw.” “The win against Arizona was an unbelievable program-building win. It’s a culture-building win. It’s what I envisioned when I took over the program. That being said, I want more. Obviously, we would have loved to win the Northern Iowa game and also the game today against Tennessee but through all both of those I do feel like it’s enough stuff that I saw that we can improve on to become that team to beat
Senior F Lennard Freeman On the take away from the tournament: “It was a great experience. We had some positives and negatives and even though we’re walking away 1-2, both losses we can take some god out of it; great opportunities. We just gotta learn from it and we just gotta get better from here.”
