We are less than 6 weeks away from the tip-off of the new college basketball season, which means that we have plenty of time to start preparing for the action ahead. We will do so via a series of season previews featuring the best players/coaches in the country. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel continues our coverage with Tennessee assistant coach Steve McClain, who talked about having the best offensive rebounding team in the country and his expectations for this season.
In 1994 as head coach at Hutchinson Community College you won the NJCAA national championship: what did it mean to you to win a title? When you win a title at any level it is special. As coaches we downplay it at the time, but as you get older you realize they are hard to win so they are all special.
You were also named national COY: what did it mean to you to receive such an outstanding honor? Those kinds of honors are due to having a great staff/players. It means we did a great job of putting a roster together that people thought was a well-coached team.
You were hired by Coach Rick Barnes last year: what makes him such a great coach, and what is the most important thing that you have learned from him so far? He walks into the gym every day excited to help our team get better and our individual players get better as well: he is focused on that alone. I have been in this business a long time and he has more energy than anyone I have ever worked with.
You were previously a head coach at UIC/Wyoming: what is the biggest difference between being an assistant coach at a power conference school and a head coach elsewhere? In today’s world with NIL, it is very different. At the Power 5 level you are probably fortunate to have more veteran assistant coaches and strength coaches, while at other schools you have younger guys who probably want to move on to a Power 5 job. At the mid-major programs you just hire the best young guys and then try to keep them until a Power 5 school gets them.
Last spring the Vols made the Elite 8 and finished the year #1 in offensive rebounding percentage: what is the secret to rebounding, and how crucial is it to your team’s success? It is something that Coach Barnes’ teams have always been great at, and the only way to get that identity is to do it every single day. It is not an easy thing to do, so if you want to be good at it you have to emphasize it every day. It creates extra possessions and last year’s team was very good at it.
As somebody who has been in this business for a while, has it been difficult to adjust to all of the recent changes that have happened (expanded NCAA tourney), are happening (current chaos of which players have eligibility), and might happen (Protect College Sports Act)? You always pay attention to it because it can all affect you. As a junior college coach who only had his players for 2 years, I was always rebuilding my roster, so I am used to it. Hopefully we can find some common ground with the schools/conferences and get back to normalcy in the years ahead…but until then we will run with what we got.
Your brutal non-conference schedule includes games against Michigan State/NC State/Purdue as well as a trip to Vegas for the Players Era: is there any 1 game that you feel will be your biggest test or that you are most excited about? If you look at the history of Coach Barnes, he has never been afraid to play great non-conference opponents, and we are also part of the best league in the country. We try to find non-conference teams who will prepare us for SEC play, so we will go on the road and play in difficult environments like Purdue and against great coaches like Tom Izzo. We want to end up as 1 of the best teams in the SEC.
Earlier this month we learned that freshman Ralph Scott underwent surgery on his left knee and will be out for 6-8 months: how devastating was it to hear the news, and is it now just a matter of “next man up”? We kind of knew that it was a possibility: he tried to strengthen everything but eventually reached a decision to have the surgery. It is unfortunate, but hopefully he can come back better than ever, and it shows the importance of having depth at this level.
1 of the other new additions to your roster this year is Juke Harris, who transferred in from Wake Forest after scoring more than 21 PPG last year: how has he looked so far? He has been very good thanks in part to playing for a very good coach in Steve Forbes. He is competitive and tries to get better each day, so it has been fun to watch how much quicker/stronger he has gotten over the summer and his ability to shoot the ball at such a high level.
What are your goals for the upcoming season, and what are your expectations for the upcoming season? When you have been to 3 straight Elite 8s, you are trying to get 1 more! We want to play on that final Monday night in April so that is the ultimate goal.
