Tennessee basketball’s Rick Barnes keeps it blunt after Florida demolition – ‘They kicked our butt’

With long-time Tennessee basketball head coach Rick Barnes leading the program, there’s no doubt major disappointment from Saturday night as the No. 21 unit lost to the unranked Florida Gators, 91-67. As Barnes knows what he’s looking for from the Tennessee basketball team on a game-by-game basis, he would speak on what led to the shocking blowout loss.

Barnes would keep it real during his post-game press conference, saying that what caused the defeat was committing 18 turnovers, which led to 30 points for the Gators. The Volunteers’ coach gave Florida credit, saying that “they kicked our butt,” according to On3 Sports.

“Turnovers. Decisions. You look at 30 points off turnovers to our eight. They shot the ball 15 more times,” Barnes said. “And they don’t need any help. I mean, give them credit. They were there. I thought they challenged everything at the rim. I didn’t think we did. They kicked our butt. That’s all I can tell you. And that’s disappointing, because for 16 minutes in the first half, we were there, the kind of game you thought it would be. And then turnovers.

Rick Barnes on Tennessee basketball’s mental toughness

Looking more at what went wrong for the Tennessee basketball team, Barnes would also emphasize the mental mindset that the Volunteers lacked against Florida and in general. He spoke more on how the Volunteers have been unable to overcome “when things aren’t going our way.”

“And then we’re not tough enough yet as a team when things aren’t going our way to know how to fight through it,” Barnes said. “Then we got again, we’re talking about turnovers. I could probably count another 10 shots that were really ill-advised shots with guys taking shots when you when you need high-percentage basketball, shots that they don’t practice and are just hoping.”

“You can’t win this game on hope,” Barnes continued. “You can’t. And give them all the credit they after that, the last four minutes on, they controlled the game and did what they wanted to do. And you know what? They got relaxed, they started playing. And we didn’t guard, we didn’t put up the resistance. Just way too many defensive breakdown coverages.”

At any rate, Tennessee is now 11-5, looking to bounce back with Tuesday’s game against Texas A&M.

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