When the Vols brought in Jaylen Carey from the transfer portal, they wanted one particular version of him.
Tennessee basketball wanted the Carey it faced when he suited up for Vanderbilt a year ago. Head coach Rick Barnes envisioned the man who bullied the Vols in a double-double effort at Memorial Gymnasium, or the variation that enjoyed an 18-point effort in his future home arena. The common theme Barnes looked for was consistency.
Through 21 games, Carey’s Tennessee tenure is one filled with ups and downs. The 6-foot-8 figure looked to be emerging as one of the Vols’ top scoring threats down low at the beginning of the campaign, wrestling his way to a career game against Syracuse that set the standard for his potential in his new home. Some lulls followed, his coaching staff demanding more from him during practice to earn a larger role on gameday. On the final day of January against Auburn, Carey turned in his best scoring performance in a month.
Now, his coach needs him to sustain it.
“We’ve talked about it a lot,” Barnes said. “It’s him. I told him today before shootaround, at some point in time, he’s going to have to look in the mirror and be real with himself, knowing how much this team needs him and how much we need him to count on. It’s on him to push himself to that point. He can do it.”
Carey played a season-high 27 minutes against the Tigers, partly filling a hole left by the injured Felix Okpara. His 13 points signaled the most since a late-December game against South Carolina State.
His steadiness on the glass remains a calling card for the big, but some struggles scoring in the paint, oftentimes from point-blank range, held the Southwest Ranches, Florida, product down at times.
Even against Auburn, Barnes knew there remained a higher gear his guy could shift to.
“We actually took him out at the start of the second half cause we told him he wasn’t going hard enough,” Barnes said. “He came out and he said, ‘I got it, I got it.’ We had a not good offensive possession and he didn’t make an effort. He’s got so much more in the tank. He’s got so much more left if he would make up his mind that he wants to dominate in his own way.”
Carey’s way of dominating is a form that won’t show up on the stat sheet. From the eye test, his 267-pound frame and ability to box out below the rack appears to be his best asset in the matchups where he’s been at his best this season. His way of dominating consists of backing down defenders to create a higher percentage shot, sometimes rising through contact to finish in emphatic fashion.
Physicality continues to be one of Tennessee’s most relied-upon assets, an element of a team that builds success from the glass outwards. It’s something that is contagious for the Vols’ bigs, and it tends to translate on most days, but not always guaranteed.
Consistency is key.
“One thing that we can bring to the table is our physicality,” forward DeWayne Brown II said. “So me and Jaylen in the game, of course we’re both in the paint, we’re both trying to get every rebound. It’s probably for the other team, very hard to keep us off the board at the same time.”
