Tennessee coach Rick Barnes yells to his players during an NCAA college basketball game against Gardner-Webb on Sunday, Nov. 22, 2015. (Wade Payne/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP)KNOXVILLE – In the first eight games of his college basketball career, Kyle Alexander scored five points.
The Tennessee freshman scored six Wednesday night.
First-year coach Rick Barnes was pleased with how the 6-foot-9 rookie played as the Volunteers overcame some sloppiness in an 81-62 victory against Florida Atlantic at Thompson-Boling Arena.
“I’m really excited for what Kyle did tonight,” Barnes said after the game.
Alexander has looked very much like a player who grew up in Canada playing soccer instead of basketball so far in his Vols career, but he scored six points with five rebounds and three blocks in 22 minutes against the Owls.
Going into Wednesday night’s game he had twice as many fouls (10) as points (five), but his impact on Tennessee’s win went beyond the box score, and Barnes is hopeful the Canadian project can build on the performance as conference play approaches.
“I think this is one of my best games, yes,” Alexander said. “I took care of the small details, and I think that a lot of people were pleased with how I played. It doesn’t stop here. I’ve got to focus on being consistent.
“That’s my biggest problem – being consistent – and I’ve got to carry this over to the next game.”
Tennessee (5-4) jumped to a 15-point lead in the game’s first 10 minutes but scored just 13 points and had as many turnovers as made shots (five) in the final 9:49 of the first half. The hosts led 52-38 midway through the second half when the Owls (2-8) pulled to within five points with 9:46 to go.
At that point Kevin Punter Jr., Tennessee’s leading scorer, had seen enough.
The senior poured in 11 straight points, with seven of them coming at the free-throw line, to jump-start an 18-2 run that pushed Tennessee’s lead to 71-50 and put the game away.
“Coach was saying, ‘Attack the elbow.’ All game I wasn’t attacking the elbow how he needs me to,” Punter said. “I told myself, literally, I’m about to score every time, to be honest with you.
“That’s when we separated ourselves.”
Punter scored 15 points in the second half to finish with 24 on 7-of-14 shooting, and he’s the first Tennessee player to score at least 20 points in six consecutive games since Chris Lofton in 2006.
“Kyle, I’m telling you, had a lot to do with that,” Barnes said, “because he ran and got down there and got his guy on him and opened up that driving lane. And some good things happened.”
Barnes is hard on all of his players in practice, but he’s especially demanding of Alexander, who probably would be redshirting in a more ideal roster situation than the one in Knoxville.
“Sometimes it’s tough,” Alexander said, “because even when you think you did something not that bad, he comes in and tells you this is wrong or this is wrong. But I enjoy it.
“There’s a quote that we always mention: ‘Average players want to be left alone, and good players want to be coached.’ I like it when they tell me things I’ve got to fix, because I don’t want to be left alone. If they leave you alone, you’re not learning.
“It shows me that he cares, that he wants me to get better, and then it helps me get better, too.”
Barnes admitted he’s harder on Alexander than he normally would be on a player, but there’s a reason for that approach.
“We’ve got great expectations for him,” he said. “He’s going to end up being one of the great running post guys that we’ve had, and he’s got great hands. He overthinks things, and he’s probably harder on himself than I am on him. He’s hard on himself, but I’m not going to let him off the hook.
“I think he can be terrific. This is a really big year for him, and I thought tonight he really got down and played. He acted like he had some energy. He was absolutely awful at Butler, and he flipped it around to do things he did tonight. (That’s) a real testament to his mental toughness.
“Every minute he plays is like putting money in the bank. That account’s just going to grow and grow and grow.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com