Rick Barnes recaps Tennessee's loss to Xavier basketball
Rick Barnes recaps Tennessee's loss to Xavier basketball
Dan Harralson, Vols WireFri, October 16, 2026 at 12:16 PM UTC
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Rick Barnes details Tennessee's exhibition basketball loss to Xavier.
Tennessee played its first exhibition basketball game on Thursday ahead of the 2026-27 regular season. Xavier defeated the Vols, 86-70, at Food City Center.
12th-year Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes discussed the Vols' performance after Thursday's exhibition.
"I told the coaches, because I think these guys have heard so much about how good offensive players they are, their scoring production, and all that, but we've been telling them all summer, you know, there's going to be nights like tonight when we score, what, 70 points," Barnes said. "I mean, we did that last year with guys that weren't offensively productive, but the fact is, on nights when you don't shoot the ball well, if you're a good basketball team, you're going to find a way to win the game defensively. Once we hit a little bit of adversity, where they scored on us because of bad offense, it really got even worse because of really, really poor defense, and some of this, I'll be honest with you, you couldn't dream of.
"I mean, you don't let somebody run by you to get a layup, all those kinds of things, but it's good. I told the guys, I said, maybe now you'll realize what we've been harping on since you guys have been here. We're going to have to learn to guard at a high rate. In the first half, we thought we'd be a little jittery, which we were. Dwayne (Brown II) missed some shots at the rim that I think he'll make, and free throws. We really could have gotten out ahead, which maybe would have changed our psyche a little bit, but that might have been a little bit of false confidence or whatever. I like the way it played out when they came back and got into the game. When they came back with an 11 or 12-point run, I don't think we responded well. We thought we were going to outscore them, took too many bad shots, and they got too much stuff at the rim. We came out of timeouts talking about things we weren't going to give up, and then we gave them up. We've got to listen better, but now maybe they realize that we're not going to score our way to wins. Xavier, you know, Richard (Pitino) does a great job with this team. I mean, it was good for us. I told the coaches that if we're going to get beat, I hope they really beat us so maybe we can really get their attention."
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Tennessee will play its second and final exhibition game on Oct. 20. The Vols will play at Duke and tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. EDT at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, North Carolina (ACC Network).
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