KNOXVILLE – As wins pile up for the Tennessee men’s basketball team and the various metrics of midseason success point towards the Volunteers being one of the top 15 programs in the nation, the question remains.
What does it take to make Rick Barnes happy?
Barnes, in his third season as coach, has harped incessantly on the need for consistency. His No. 18 Vols (16-5, 6-3 Southeastern Conference) host Ole Miss (11-11, 4-5) tonight at Thompson-Boling Arena having won seven of their past eight games.
“What I really want is about 65 percent shooting and 32 assists,” Barnes said after Tennessee beat LSU 84-61 Wednesday night in Knoxville. “That’s what I really want.”
In other words, don’t expect Barnes to lighten up as his young team hits the second half of SEC play.
“I’m sure you guys get tired of hearing me talk about it, but I’m not going to get away from the message with them or with you all,” Barnes said Friday. “I’m worried about today.”
Tennessee was picked by media to finish 13th in the 14-team league before the season. Entering today’s games, the Vols were tied for second. On Friday, SEC Network listed the Vols as having a 99.9 percent chance of receiving their first NCAA tournament berth since 2014. College basketball analyst Ken Pomeroy’s most recent national rankings have the Vols eighth.
Those things are not conversation topics in Tennessee’s locker room – at least not when Barnes is around.
“We haven’t talked to our team about that,” Barnes said. “I think at one time that was probably foremost on our mind, but we don’t talk about that.”
Barnes’ quest for 65 percent shooting and 32 assists in a game only covers the offensive side. His target for the Vols’ defense is to hold opponents to 39 percent shooting or worse.
Only once this season have the Vols shot 65 percent and held an opponent to less than 39 percent in a half – the first half of an 84-60 win over Mercer on Nov. 29. Tennessee’s best shooting performance for a full league game this year was 57.5 percent in a win over South Carolina.
There have been only a handful of games in program history when Tennessee has shot 65 percent or better. Only twice in program history have the Vols accumulated 32 assists in a game. They had that many in a win over UT-Chattanooga in November 2008 and 34 in a win over the University of North Carolina-Asheville in November 2009.
The defensive aim is somewhat more realistic. The Vols have held opponents to 39 percent or less shooting in two of nine league games this season.
The goals are lofty, but the point is to keep striving for improvement.
“You can always get better,” Barnes said. “That’s what we’re trying to strive for with this team, that maybe you think you’ve gone as hard as you can go. But you can go harder. I think that’s true of everybody.”
Senior guard James Daniel, a graduate transfer, was in the back of the room after Wednesday night’s win against LSU when Barnes mentioned his desired numbers for Tennessee’s offense.
“What did he say?” Daniel said a few minutes later. “Shoot 65 percent and 30-something assists? I guess when we do that, that’s when we’ve made it. But until then, we’re still grinding every day.”
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.