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What Rick Barnes is searching for after Tennessee’s brutal loss to Florida

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What Rick Barnes is searching for after Tennessee’s brutal loss to Florida


Four minutes can alter a season.

Well, 3 minutes and 51 seconds, to be exact. In that span, Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes began to question his team’s resolve.

Unranked Florida (11-5, 2-1 SEC), the defending conference and national champion, got everything it wanted and more against No. 22 Tennessee (11-5, 1-2) in a 91-67 romp at Stephen O’Connell Center on Jan. 10.

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In the final 3:51 of the first half, the Vols committed four turnovers and could not convert a single field goal. Overall, they turned the ball over 18 times (12 in the first half), resulting in 30 points for the Gators.

“Thirty points off turnovers, you don’t have a chance,” Barnes said after the game. “Last four minutes of the first half, just really poor basketball. I’ll take the blame for it because I don’t know if I’ve had a team play that bad, doing the things and making the decisions they made. It was just really poor basketball.”

Tennessee associate coach Justin Gainey tried to warn his team about the physicality in the matchup. The Vols matched Florida’s tempo until those final four minutes of the half, then continued to unravel in the second.

Although several of the guards on Florida’s championship team moved on to the NBA, the Gators retained their top big men. Barnes knew winning the frontcourt battle would go a long way in securing the Vols’ first road victory this season.

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“Our whole deal was, we wanted a front line that could help us, but we’re not there yet,” Barnes said. “Can we get there? It’s a long way to go. I hope this game is a game we’ll look back on and think, ‘OK, these guys showed us what it takes to win at the highest level.’ “

Florida’s front court of Rueben Chinyelu, Thomas Haugh and Alex Condon combined for 41 points and 26 rebounds, a jarring contrast to Tennessee’s 30 team rebounds. Chinyelu alone had 16 rebounds, plus 17 points.

“If he didn’t catch it where he wanted it, he caught it and got to where he wanted it,” Barnes said about Chinyelu. “He dominated the game from an inside perspective. I thought today, if nothing else, we’re going to find out if we’re going to get out of the comfort zone our guys are in to compete against a team like that, especially on the front line.”

Ament has some ideas

Tennessee fought fires on two sides. While the Vols had trouble dealing with Florida’s frontcourt, guard Boogie Fland torched them all over the floor. Fland, who hadn’t made a 3-pointer since Dec. 21, finished with 23 points and knocked down 3-of-6 from long distance. He also added five assists, four steals and three rebounds and was key to extending Florida’s lead early in the second half.

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Although Barnes couldn’t figure out what was wrong with his squad, Nate Ament, who led the Vols with 17 points, tried to diagnose the illness.

“You’ve seen that when we get uncomfortable, we lay down a little bit,” he said. “Knowing teams prior, that’s just never been the team Tennessee has been. I’m sure Coach Barnes is going to make sure we fix that. For us, we have to be more competitive. You could chalk up all our mistakes to them being more competitive than us. Props to them for playing harder than us, turning us over and rebounding every loose ball.”

Tennessee welcomes Texas A&M (13-3, 3-0) at Food City Center at 7 p.m. ET on Jan. 13 (SEC Network). The Aggies just earned their sixth straight victory after beating Oklahoma 83-76 on Jan. 10.

Barnes is eager to see how his players bounce back.

“I think it’s great to see how we’re going to respond,” he said. “If we’ve got the kind of players that we think we have, we’ll learn from this.”

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Wynton Jackson covers high school sports for Knox News. Email: wynton.jackson@knoxnews.com

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South Florida officers sue Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, claiming details in ‘The Rip’ are too real

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South Florida officers sue Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, claiming details in ‘The Rip’ are too real


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“The Rip” features Affleck and Damon as South Florida police officers who find millions of dollars inside a house. Parts of the movie were inspired by a real 2016 case.

FILE – Matt Damon and Ben Affleck attend the world premiere of “The Rip” at Alice Tully Hall, on Jan. 13, 2026, in New York. Photo by CJ Rivera/Invision/AP, File

MIAMI (AP) — Two South Florida police officers claim Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s recent action thriller “The Rip” used too many real-life details in its fictionalized narrative, causing harm to the officers’ personal and professional reputations, according to a defamation lawsuit.

Jason Smith and Jonathan Santana, sergeants in the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, filed the lawsuit in Miami federal court earlier this month against Artists Equity, a film production company owned by Affleck and Damon. Court filings don’t say how much the officers are suing for, but the civil complaint says they’re seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney fees, as well as a public retraction and correction.

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“The Rip” features Affleck and Damon as South Florida police officers who find millions of dollars inside a house. Parts of the movie were inspired by a real 2016 case, where police found over $21 million linked to a suspected marijuana trafficker in a Miami Lakes home.

An attorney for Artists Equity declined to comment when reached Monday by The Associated Press. But in a March 19 response to the plaintiffs’ demand letter, Leita Walker, an attorney for Artists Equity, wrote that the film does not purport to tell the true story of that incident or portray real people, which had been stated by a disclaimer in the film’s credits.

Although Smith and Santana aren’t named in the film, the lawsuit claims that Santana was serving as the lead detective assigned to the real case, and Smith was the sergeant who supervised the investigative team. The film’s inclusion of real details about the case gives the impression that the characters are based on the plaintiffs, the suit said.

And this, the lawsuit claims, has given friends, family members and colleagues the impression that the plaintiffs committed the criminal acts that appear in the film, which include (SPOILER ALERT) conspiring to steal seized drug money, murdering a supervising officer, communicating with cartel members, committing arson in a residential neighborhood, endangering the lives of civilians, repeatedly violating core law-enforcement protocols and executing a federal agent rather than making an arrest.

Walker wrote in March that the plaintiffs haven’t even identified which particular character is supposed to be based on Smith or Santana, so even if “The Rip” was actually about a real-life narcotics team, there’s no way to connect any of the characters to the plaintiffs.

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“The Rip,” directed by Joe Carnahan, debuted in January on Netflix. It’s currently rated 78% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

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South Florida and Miami news today

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South Florida and Miami news today


You’re watching the NBC6 South Florida News streaming channel, which plays local South Florida news 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can find the “NBC6 South Florida News” streaming channel on your phone or computer, and on Peacock, Samsung, Roku, Xumo or on our app, so you can watch our local news on your schedule.



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Palm Bay, Florida parents of premature twins held NICU wedding

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Palm Bay, Florida parents of premature twins held NICU wedding


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  • A Florida couple, both with prior health issues, welcomed miracle twin boys nine weeks prematurely.
  • The couple’s planned wedding was interrupted by the early birth of their sons, Joshua and Rhett.

Ben and Danielle Cassidy were told they likely wouldn’t be able to have children.

But this year they will celebrate Mother’s Day just months after having an impromptu wedding in the AdventHealth for Children hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit shortly after Danielle gave birth to twins prematurely — a week before the Palm Bay couple was scheduled to get married.

Both babies, Joshua and Rhett, are doing well despite arriving nine weeks ahead of schedule on Jan. 19, 2026, just one day after their scheduled baby shower. With a proper wedding out of the question with two premature babies in the NICU, a nurse took action.

Issabel Kenkel, the nurse behind the ceremony, said she was already in wedding planning mode for her own upcoming nuptials when she found out the Cassidy family’s ceremony would be interrupted.

“I couldn’t just let them do something small. They needed decorations and something fun, so I spoke to the music therapist and the chaplain,” Kenkel said. In short order, a wedding was being planned for their hospital room and the couple was saying their vows in the company of their safely delivered newborns.

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“When we found out we could request staff members to be on our team, that’s when we requested Issabel and having that kind of consistency from someone who has such a big heart and is so kind,” Danielle said.

The hospital ceremony was all the more special because of the Cassidy family’s own health struggles.

“I have five autoimmune diseases and didn’t really think I would have kids. It’s been a rough journey. When Ben and I met, we were floored at how much a miracle it was to have kids,” Danielle said.

Ben, who battled and beat cancer, said he was worried that his prior treatment would result in negative health outcomes for his future children. Having twins for him was an unexpected blessing.

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“When we found out we were pregnant, we found it so shocking. We said, wouldn’t it be great if it was twins? It filled out our hopes and dreams list,” Ben said. “They’ve been miracles for sure.”

The Cassidy couple said there was so much fear and uncertainty when their twins were born nine weeks early. Being able to get married right away just made them feel all the better about the future.

“It was nice getting married because we didn’t have to wait any longer to make it official. It made it that much harder for her to get rid of me,” Ben said.

“The unknown made it scary,” Danielle added. “We had no idea how long we would be in the hospital. Our wedding was going to be at the beach with immediate family and parents. Having NICU babies, we realized we’d never be able to get to the beach. It was really special having the people who care for our babies be part of the ceremony.”

The couple hadn’t even planned to have a band at their wedding ceremony and now the hospital’s music therapist was performing live for them and the chaplain was conducting the ceremony, something nurse Kenkel said was just part of her job.

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“The babies are going to have the best outcomes if the families are taken care of and going home happy,” she said. “Being in the NICU is already so stressful. This is just one more thing I could do to take care of my patients.”

Tyler Vazquez is the Growth and Development Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Vazquez at 321-480-0854 or tvazquez@floridatoday.com. X: @tyler_vazquez.



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