Reviewing Tennessee's SEC Tourney Loss To Mizzou

The Tennessee Volunteers dropped their second game to Missouri this season in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals. How can the Vols get ready for March Madness?

With revenge on their mind, Tennessee couldn't flip the script from the earlier season matchup with Mizzou. The Vols gave up 86 in Knoxville back on February 11th and despite only giving up 79 today, the Tigers turned it on in the second half and propelled themselves to a win. 

Tennessee held Mizzou to just 30 points in the first half despite allowing 35 possessions, but a final push gave Mizzou the victory by a score of 79-71. Tennessee will now await their seed and matchup on Selection Sunday.

Despite the fast-paced game, most of the first half was very sloppy. Tennessee had five turnovers before the first media timeout of the game and then Mizzou started giving the ball away as well. The turnover battle, which is something both teams rely on, was won by Mizzou 14 to 11. The turnovers could result from Zakai Zeigler not being on the floor. "We're still learning how to play without Zakai," Barnes said.

Without Zeigler, there was a lot of rotation at point guard. Tennessee used Vescovi, Josiah-Jordan James, and Jahmai Mashack to bring the ball up the floor. Vescovi was the primary ball handler in ball screens.

In the second half, the jets were turned on by both teams. Coming out of the break, both teams were hovering around one point per possession and both teams finished above 1.1. The Vols were able to keep pace with the Tigers in the second half due to not turning it over as much combined with Tyreke Key's hot shooting.

Despite the loss, there was a lot of positivity in the press conference from both the players and Rick Barnes. Jahmai Mashack especially talked about the team bouncing back next week. "We've gone through so much that our mental toughness has really gone up," Mashack said.

Individually, the Vols were led by Vescovi and Mashack, who had 17 and 14 points, respectively. Tennessee couldn't contain D'Moi Hodge and Kobe Brown though, who finished with 26 and 24. Hodge and Brown had key buckets down the stretch to help Missouri secure the win.

Tennessee can do nothing now except continue to find a way to get better without Zeigler. The Vols will find out their seed, matchup, location, date, and time at the same time as every other team that makes the NCAA Tournament, and no matter who they play, Rick Barnes is still confident in his team.

"There's a lot of teams that wouldn't look forward to a matchup with us," Barnes said.

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