Everything Rick Barnes said after No. 17 Tennessee’s 67-62 win over No. 3 Auburn on Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville:
ON GETTING DOWN 11 POINTS EARLY IN THE SECOND HALF, BEFORE RALLYING TO WIN
“I thought we did get more aggressive defensively. I thought Zakai (Zeigler) coming in, I thought his ball pressure was really a big part of that happening. I did think it took those guys, our guys, a little bit of time to get used to their length out there. When to go and how quickly they were going to have to play to the rim. Rebounding, obviously, the second half … the first half, when we did have a little bit of a lead, we had just two blunders that you can’t have. Turnovers. Throwing it out of bounds. Really it flipped the game a little bit. But the more aggressive we got, I thought the better we became on the offensive end. Santi (Vescovi) had a tough time getting going, but that’s a credit to their defense and what they do. Overall, Auburn is a terrific team and you’re not going to get a lot of easy baskets. You knew that they have a special player, players. When they get to a situation they’re going to try to get the ball in (Jabari Smith’s) hands. He had a terrific game today.”
