KNOXVILLE - One sophomore on Tennessee's men's basketball team burst out of his coach's doghouse with a breakout performance in a tough road environment.
Another second-year Volunteer might have moved into his teammate's former residence.
While Admiral Schofield was putting behind him the tumultuous start to his second season at Tennessee with an 18-point, 10-rebound game in Saturday's loss at Florida, sophomore guard Shembari Phillips, who's started 10 games this season, played less than a minute against the Gators.
"When you deal with young players and young people in general, sometimes they have to hit rock bottom before they can bounce back," Vols coach Rick Barnes said Monday.
"I think Admiral pretty much hit rock bottom, but he just wanted to do - and he said it in front of the team the other day - he said, 'All I want to do, I don't care if I play one minute or 10 minutes or 20 minutes, I just want to do what I can do to help us win.' His actions spoke just like what he said.
"In the last week he's had his best three or four days of practice back-to-back since he's been here. I think it's a real compliment to him that he worked his way back. He had to do it, and he did it. Shembari's going to have to do the same thing."
Schofield started 22 games during his freshman season and finished his first year by scoring at least 10 points in Tennessee's final six games.
Prior to Saturday's eruption in which he made six of nine shots from the field and six of eight from the free-throw line, the 6-foot-4 forward hadn't scored more than seven points or played more than 14 minutes in any game this season. He also missed three games while suspended for violating team rules. He didn't play against Lipscomb due to an injury.
After the Florida game, Schofield admitted to the Vol Network this season hadn't been "the most delightful," but he's pushed through it and hopes to become a bigger factor moving forward.
"I think the beginning of the week I had a new focus," Schofield said, "and I told Coach that I don't care about minutes anymore, I don't care scoring, but I'm going to be aggressive and I'm going to do what I need to do to help us win. I think tonight I took the opportunity when I had the chance.
"Every game I tell myself let's impact the game by rebounding and playing defense first (and) take what they give you (on offense). Tonight I tried to defend as hard as I could, grab as many rebounds as I could, and when I had shots, I just took them. Coach wanted me to be aggressive and establish an inside presence. The ball just fell in for me today."
Phillips scored at least 11 points in four of Tennessee's first six games and had 14 plus seven assists in the win against Georgia Tech, but he played less than 20 minutes in four of the five games prior to Saturday's disappearing act in Gainesville and Barnes told reporters he could tell Phillips wasn't engaged in the game.
An 11-game starter as a freshman, Phillips had 10 points, six rebounds, three assists and four turnovers in the win at Texas A&M, but he was scoreless in 22 minutes against Arkansas, though he did grab a season-high seven rebounds in the loss.
Entering Florida's game, Phillips was averaging 8.8 points per game and was second on the team in assists, but now he finds himself in a similar position as Schofield was earlier in the season.
"There's no question that Shembari's capable of doing it," Barnes said, "but most of the time when you get down and things aren't going well and you can kind of set aside your feelings of yourself and say, 'What can I do?' or 'What do I have to do to help this team win?' it happens a whole lot quicker.
"I think in the case of Jordan Bowden, it's not anything other than when he got hurt he let up a little bit. In the last week he's put more time in the gym than any player that we've had. There's no secrets to what we do. You're pretty much going to reap what you sow.
"Everybody was happy for Admiral - I can tell you that - because he was locked in and he was really locked in defensively. When he does that, I just think innately his offense is going to take care of itself."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.