Barnes to tweak routine for postseason
KNOXVILLE — Rick Barnes said after Tennessee secured a Southeastern Conference regular-season basketball co-championship Saturday that he is “a rhythm coach” and he likes for the Volunteers to stay in a rhythm as team.
“When you break at Christmas, that’s a tough time because their schedules change,” Barnes said.
The veteran coach has found that when this Tennessee team takes a day off from practice, its collective effort has been unimpressive on the day practice resumes. With the regular season now behind them, the 13th-ranked Vols will have to fix that problem.
“We’ll get back in there tomorrow and we probably won’t have a good practice,” Barnes said. “That’s been the rhythm of this team. I’ll have to scream and yell a lot, but that’s part of it.”
Tennessee opens the SEC tournament Friday at 7 p.m. EST in St. Louis against the winner of Thursday’s game between 10-seed LSU and 7-seed Mississippi State.
Barnes’ phone still was filled with unread congratulatory text messages Monday after Saturday’s victory. But now the stakes are rising and the routine is changing as Tennessee enters the postseason with a chance to win another title and boost its NCAA tournament seeding with its performance in the conference tournament.
After going months without playing a Friday game, the Vols plan to leave Wednesday for St. Louis, where they will try to adjust to the new and unpredictable rhythm of the postseason.
“We’ll try to assimilate the travel schedule to what they’ll see in the NCAA tournament so they can get acclimated that way to the following week,” Barnes said.
Part of the adjustment includes some tweaks to the game plan. The Vols rarely have played zone defense this season, but Barnes said Monday that zone is something the team will work on in practice this week.
“Things like that, that we haven’t put as much time into,” Barnes said. “The biggest thing this time of year is just be fresh mentally and physically. To have fresh legs but be there mentally.”
Co-player of week
Admiral Schofield was named SEC co-player of the week for the second straight time after leading the Vols with 23 points on Saturday and scoring 24 in a Tuesday win over Mississippi State.
National outlook
Tennessee remained in the Associated Press Top 25 for a 14th consecutive week, listed at a season-best 13th in the poll released Monday.
ESPN’s Monday projection had the Vols as a No. 3 seed opening the tournament against Montana in Dallas as part of the Midwest Regional. A projection from CBS Sports had Tennessee as the No. 3 seed in the East Regional opening against College of Charleston in Pittsburgh.
NBC Sports also had Tennessee as the No. 3 seed in the Midwest Regional opening in Dallas but against Bucknell.
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @ DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.