Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes’ message

Tennessee was not on the court practicing on Monday but they got a message from head coach Rick Barnes, who was obviously bothered by his team’s first half effort on Saturday as Vanderbilt put up 44 points. Barnes called it one of the worst starts one of his teams has had in a long time.

Barnes’ message Monday was pretty simple. Don’t get comfortable.

“You just wonder where their head might be because some of the mistakes that we make early, it is perplexing and we are into the middle of February,” Barnes said Monday on VolCalls. “With that said, there’s a lot of people who would like to be where we are right now. But that’s not the standard we have set. Our standard is higher than that. We expect more. I threw some stuff at them today. Maybe we have too many guys that are too comfortable right now. I told them if you don’t think I will make a change right now in the starting line up, if we need to do that then I will do that,” Barnes explained. “We are not going to be comfortable. We are not going to sit here like we have accomplished something right now because we haven yet in terms of where we want to be.

“We have always been our best when we have been on edge.”

Barnes, who challenged veteran point guard Zakai Zeigler at half time on Saturday, knows his veteran, experienced players who understand March need to help their teammates understand what the coming month is really about.

“This time of the year you have to get better if you want to be a team that can really go deep into March and play,” Barnes said. On our team right now, you think about it Jahmai Mashack, Zakai Zeigler, Jordan Gainey and Felix (Okpara), no one else even knows what the NCAA Tournament is about. They don’t know what it’s like to play in what is now the best college basketball conference in the country and know that a team like Vanderbilt, who I believe is an NCAA Tournament team, is fighting to make sure they do it. And they have good players.”

Tennessee will see a team with even better players and definitely more size as they take on #7 Texas A&M Saturday in College Station at noon ET after a much needed break.

“It comes at a good time for us,” Barnes said of the open date. We look like a MASH unit,(Trainer) Chad Newman is working his tail off. Just things like strained calf, sprained toe, this that and the other. Just things you wouldn’t expect. So it comes at a good time We are trying to manage this week were we get them some rest obviously, but try and stay in some rhythm. But we right now need rest so came in today and guys always come in and do some individual shooting. But we did just tape of our game and try to learn from what happened Saturday. We will come back tomorrow and have a good workout and probably take Wednesday off again and be back on our regular routine.”

Tennessee is 21-5 and projected currently as a two seed in the NCAA Tournament.

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