What Rick Barnes, Scott Drew said after Tennessee beat Baylor for Baha Mar title
What head coach Rick Barnes said after No. 11 Tennessee’s 77-62 win over No. 13 Baylor in the Baha Mar Championship title game at the Baha Mar Resort late Friday night in The Bahamas:
Opening Statement
“Defensively, just proud of the effort of our older guys who set such a good tone for us. But it’s been fun coming here in this, one of our favorite places to come because we feel like we get a a really good following with the fanbase and I think they’ve enjoyed it. And just the accommodations have been special.”
Tennessee facing two quality opponents in the tournament and his takeaway after two the games
“Well, I saw really, I thought, great mental preparation. Getting ready. Like I’m sure Baylor, both of us would like to have a little more time, preparation would probably be a little bit different too, maybe. Maybe, maybe not. I mean, we had Virginia, we knew that coming in, so we were able to get that done really before we got here. And then you don’t know what will be next.
“But a lot of credit to our coaching staff. Those guys are doing an incredible job digging deep, going back, not just games this year, but last year. We’re really trying to give our players the best cheat sheet they can to get ready. And we’ve got so much respect for the game and for the our opponents and trying to give them (the players) as much without overloading them. And I’m really proud of their staff for the job that they did and really proud of the players for being able to absorb the different things we threw at them.”
Getting out to such a big lead early in the game
“And in the game, we got we got a flow going early. And when you get a lead like that, it’s really hard to play because you want to continue to be aggressive, but you don’t want to get sloppy. And at times we did. But then defensively, trying to stay with that against the team that puts you in a lot of tough situations like Baylor can do. And, overall, learn that we can continue to get better. We have a chance to have a really good basketball team.
“It’s a long way to go. It’s a long way to go. We’re still early into the season. We’ve had some good wins over some good basketball teams, but I will tell you, I told our team that it’s good. The winning’s good. It feels good. But if you ever think you’ve arrived this time of year, we’ll find out real quick. We’ll get slapped in the face a few times. And I hope we don’t have to do that to keep understanding how much better we can become as a team.”
Baylor coach Scott Drew
Opening Statement
“First want to congratulate Tennessee. They’re really good team. Coach (Rick) Barnes is an unbelievable coach and an even better person. Mad respect for him. Love playing against him because if you have a weakness, they’ll expose it, and their toughness showed first half. Two assists, nine turnovers by us, and then we didn’t do a good job on the glass. The one guy we said, ‘don’t give him an open three,’ had 15 points in the first four minutes.
“So with that all being said, I was proud of second half. We competed, we got better, and look forward to seeing just how much we can improve the rest of the year.”
Playing tough games like Tennessee this early in the season
“Well, I think right away, what you risk is confidence. You can lose confidence if you lose some games, but if you stay together, you really gain a great team, because diamonds are formed under pressure. We need to know what we’re gonna get and what to expect from guys in these situations, because this is what the Big 12 conference is about. We got a lot of new guys, and a lot of guys, we’re coaching for the first time, so just trying to figure out pieces, rotations, what we do defensively, offensively. So we’re making strides.”
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