On Selection Sunday Tennessee lost to Florida 86-77 in the SEC tourney title game, but still earned an at-large bid to this week’s NCAA tournament. The Volunteers made the Sweet 16 in 2023, the Elite 8 in 2024, and hope to make an even deeper run in 2025. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Tennessee assistant coach Gregg Polinsky about his team’s great defense and facing Wofford on Thursday in Lexington.
You played PG at New Mexico/NAU: how good a player were you back in the day? Not very! My joke is that I practiced a lot on a very good team at New Mexico. I lost a year of eligibility at NAU after playing 9 minutes against the Cuban national team. I was an average college player.
How did you 1st get into coaching? I was close to my high school coach and thought that was what I wanted to do, so it remained a constant theme in my mind. I love the game and love teaching and the connection/competition. I got hired at a junior college and eventually made it to D-1.
You spent 4 years as head coach at Georgia Southern: how did being a head coach compare to being an assistant coach? That was a great experience. I wish I would have had a few more years with a guy like Rick Barnes. My joke is that the other coaches in the league were playing chess while I was playing checkers, but I learned a lot and still have some close friends from that time. Now that I am 67, when I look back on it I think it was well worth it.
You spent more than 2 decades in the NBA in various scouting/player personnel roles: has the gap between the NCAA and NBA been closing recently due to NIL or other factors? The positive aspect is that players absolutely should participate in the revenue sharing of college athletics. Like any other career path, the question is whether it is too much too early. I struggle with the idea of high school kids in some states getting paid, which is the challenging side of it. The good aspect is for kids who are investing their money early on so they can have some later in life: thank goodness that most of our guys have parents who give them an allowance and then put the rest of the way until their career is done. In our conference, the level of play has been spectacular. What has surprised me is to see the guys competing now that they are getting money, but the SEC tourney was simply…wow! Did it look like any of those kids cared about money or about competing at the highest level: the latter. To think that the talent level in college is even close to the NBA is silly: as good as our league is, our best teams would not stand a chance against any NBA team. The college game is still tremendous. We might have the best AD in the country, and Danny White feels there must be a collective bargaining agreement…but it cannot be the same as in the NBA.
On Selection Sunday the SEC received a record 14 bids: what is it like to be part of the greatest conference in the history of the sport? I think it will sink in if I still have all my faculties maybe 10 years from now. Someone on the radio yesterday mentioned the # of Quad 1 games that some of our teams played. I am pulling for every team in our league and I respect all the coaches/assistants/programs. My concern is whether we have cannibalized ourselves, so I am curious to see how we perform in the NCAA. They say that “iron sharpens iron” so I think we will perform well, but it has been such a gauntlet to get here. I think that every team can point to what they did to make the NCAA tourney, and the leadership in our league cares so much.
What makes Barnes such a great coach, and what is the most important thing that you have learned from him so far? #1: he is brilliant. Sometimes I tell him to slow down when he starts telling me about a play because I am a visual person. I would attend 20-30 college practices/year when I was in the NBA, and the level of accountability with Rick is what separates him. He does not want “great”, but rather “excellence”: he is somewhere between perfection and progress. He never pats himself on the back and I could not have more admiration for the man because it is 100% about the players. He wants them to have an opportunity to reach their goals in basketball and life: all he needs is to see them excel.
2 weeks ago Jahmai Mashack made a 3 at the buzzer to beat Alabama (www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbtYN1Wvf84): where does that rank among the most clutch shots that you have ever seen in person? Yes! If you know Jahmai and the role he has accepted here, it still gives me goosebumps. He could guard players in the NBA today. He plays in a more limited role for us, but somebody smart will invest in him. The satisfaction I felt for him/his tremendous family was great: we have won a lot of games and never been unranked during his time here. We appreciate all our terrific transfers like Chaz Lanier/Igor Milicic/etc., but how many kids would stay in Jahmai’s shoes for 4 years to play that role? He already has the corner 3, but it is hard to find someone who plays defense like that.
Your team’s 27.8 3P% allowed is #1 in the country: what is the key to playing great perimeter defense? It starts with Coach. Mike Schwartz (now the head coach at ECU) laid the groundwork, and Justin Gainey has taken over the reins as our spectacular defensive coordinator: someone needs to grab him as a head coach. All our coaches understand the game and are all head coach material. Each players who leaves here passes the torch onto the next guy: Coach lets our leaders coach the team because they have their own style. When your players take ownership and feel that sense of pride: you got something.
You made the Sweet 16 in 2023 and the Elite 8 in 2024: what will it take to make an even deeper run in 2025? I was talking to former Bullets GM Bob Ferry once about the draft: he said that at the end of the day you are never quite sure about the guys you draft so you need a little bit of luck. You also need to make some shots/clutch plays. We will run a good offense but there are key times in the game when you need to convert your open looks to build some momentum. The biggest facet for us is to rebound like we did for ¾ of the year: we need to get that back because Florida did a # on us yesterday (39-25 REB advantage). When we beat them here handily during the year we outrebounded them. All the teams will be prepared analytically but when we defend/rebound we have a chance to beat anybody. We are humble about what it takes to win.
How do you feel about being a #2 seed, and what do you know about Wofford? We are proud of being a #2 seed and do not feel disrespected. It is a tough task deciding who is who so the seeding does not matter to us, although we have never been a #1 seed so it matters to some of our fans. We are thrilled to be in Lexington so that our fans can travel here in under 3 hours: we will have a nice crowd. Wofford had a good year and has a great tradition. We respect every opponent and we will have to play well: they will not give us the game.
