Rick Barnes was sending a message to Chaz Lanier. Tennessee’s transfer guard was stuck on the bench in the closing minutes of Sunday’s charity exhibition game against Indiana and it had nothing to do with his 13 missed shots.
“His job, if he is open, we want him to shoot the ball,” Barnes said after Tennessee’s 66-62 loss to the visiting Hoosiers at Food City Center. “You use these games to sometimes let guys understand, hey, we have talked about it, we have done it, you have got to play hard.
“At the end of the game, we went with our team that we thought gave us the best chance defensively.”
Chaz Lanier vs. Indiana: 10 points, 3-16 FG, 2-12 3FG, 20 minutes
That team didn’t include Lanier. He checked out with 6:54 left in the second half, with Tennessee leading 54-50, and never returned to the game.
He finished with 10 points on just 3-for-16 shooting from the field. He was 2-for-12 from the 3-point line and added three rebounds, two blocks and two assists in his 20 minutes.
“It gets down to, again, I think a lot of our guys that played today — and I just talked to them about it — they have to understand they have to do the basic things for us to to get to where trust becomes a factor,” Barnes said, “but it is about a role we want him to play.
“We want him to shoot it. It has nothing to do with missed shot. It all comes down to how can you impact the game if you are not making shots.”
Tennessee led by six, 52-46 after a pair of Zakai Zeigler free throws. Indiana followed with a game-changing 10-0 run, building a 60-54 lead with 4:17 left after a three-point play from Malik Reneau.
Lanier didn’t start, either, making his debut with 17:29 left in the first half.
In the first half Lanier scored seven points on 2-for-11 from the field, going 1-for-8 at the 3-point line. Tennessee as a team went just 8-for-33 (.242) from the field before halftime and was 3-for-20 from the 3-point line.
Up Next: No. 12 Tennessee vs. Gardner-Webb, November 4, 7 p.m. ET
Lanier, the Nashville native and North Florida transfer, was Tennessee biggest addition out of the NCAA Transfer Portal during the offseason. He was college basketball’s most efficient scorer last season, averaging 19.5 points per game on 16.3 possessions per game, averaging 1.20 points per possession.
Those numbers didn’t translate in his unofficial Tennessee debut.
Barnes said during his media day press conference on October 10 that Lanier had missed time with a minor foot issue early in the preseason.
He said Sunday that missed practice time also was a factor in Lanier missing minutes against Indiana. That, on top of what Lanier still needs to show in practice.
“I have said it before: What we do in practice is going to determine who is going to start and who is going to play,” Barnes said. “I tell the guys all the time. The film is going to decide who is going to play. We watch it constantly. We show it to them.
“There are certain things that we just have to get from guys. If they are not willing to do that, you hope that they will. If not, you have to put the guys out there that are your most consistent guys.”
