Here’s what Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said after the loss to North Carolina

Tennessee let one slip away once again to the North Carolina Tar Heels on Sunday, bringing back all too familiar memories of last year’s contest. Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes broke down the game shortly after. Here’s what he had to say.

• On what the difference was. “What jumps out is the 19 offensive rebounds. They scored 20 points on that. Transition baskets — those were the things we talked long and hard about. We just can’t give those up.”
• “I thought the difference for them was Sterling Manley. He was terrific. That was the best I’ve seen him play from what I’ve seen on tape. His ten points and eight rebounds were big ones.”
• “We had some great looks. We had some threes that rimmed out and that’s part of it.”
• “First half I thought our defense was good, second half we weren’t as aggressive as we would have liked to have been. We didn’t finish it.”
• “I said before the game that this won define us, win or lose. If we’re the team we want to be, we will bounce back Wednesday against a good team.”
• “I don’t think we have to play perfect anymore to win a game like this. We didn’t get anywhere near perfect, but we had a chance. When we had a lead, we didn’t do what we needed to do when we got the lead. That will always to offensive execution.”
• On James Daniel. “He’s getting more and more comfortable. He’s starting to understand what we need him to do. He was probing all night looking to try and get his teammates set up. Where he helps us more than anything is when he gets after it on defense. He’s probably the best we’ve got there at guarding the ball.”
• “I thought John Fulkerson did some nice things today that we can build on. We need him to get going and he will.”
• On Kyle Alexander. “He gave up seven straight points. We didn’t feel like he was engaged. He got outran down the court and gave up the offensive rebound at the end of the half and they scored. We need him. He’s the guy that we always talk about anchoring our defense.
• On finishing games. “They have to go from talking about it to doing it. All the teams say the right things, but you gotta go do it. I don’t know if we’ll be the team that we want to be until we learn to talk and coach each other.”
• “The game can be real simple if you let it be. We haven’t learned to simplify it yet.”
• “I love our fans. One thing I’ve learned here is that Tennessee loves basketball. They want and they deserve to have a good basketball team. This team has a chance to be that team.”