STARKVILLE, Miss — Tennessee basketball trailed by as many as 15 points at Mississippi State on Wednesday night before its ferocious comeback bid came up just short in a 77-72 loss.
Here’s three quick takeaways.
Mississippi State’s Physicality Gives Tennessee Fits
Tennessee assistant coach Gregg Polinsky talked on Tuesday that Mississippi State is the most physical team the Vols will play all season. The Vols are usually well equipped to play physical teams but this Tennessee team isn’t to the same degree as year’s past.
Still, Mississippi State physically dominating the game the way they did was an extremely surprising. And make no bones about it, it was a physically dominant performance.
Bulldogs’ star big game Tolu Smith went right into Jonas Aidoo’s chest and finished a layup for Mississippi State’s first points of the game. It was a sign of what was to come as Mississippi State hammered the Vols in the paint with limited resistance.
Mississippi State outscored Tennessee 36-32 in the paint while Smith, in his third game returning from injury, was a dominant force going for 12 points in the first half and 23 for the game.
The Bulldogs physicality presented just as many issues for Tennessee’s offense. The Vols entered the game turning it over just 10.6 times per game and hadn’t struggled with ball pressure much at all this season. But Mississippi State’s physical, high pressure defense gave the Vols fits as they turned it over 10 times in the first half alone.
Mississippi State’s physicality didn’t give Tennessee as many issues in the second half, particularly for the Vols’ offense. But Tennessee still had few answers for Smith with Aidoo and Awaka both fouling out.
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A Tale Of Two Halves For Tennessee Offensively
Tennessee’s offense turned in its worst 20 minutes of the year in the first half at Mississippi State, scoring just 22 points while failing to do much of anything affectively.
The biggest reason why Tennessee’s offense has improved this season is the main reason why the Vols faltered so badly at Mississippi State— turnovers. The Vols’ 10 first half turnovers were a major issue but far from the only one.
Tennessee shot just nine-of-27 from the field and two-of-13 from three-point range in the first half. Take Zakai Zeigler out of the mix and it was five-of-22 and zero-of-10. It was genuinely hard to watch basketball and an offensive showing we hadn’t yet see from Tennessee this season— at least to that degree.
But the second half was a different showing. It took Tennessee all of 6:03 in the second half to exceed its first half point total.
Going to the full court press, more on that in a minute, was a big piece of the puzzle but not the only one. Zeigler continued his red-hot shooting finishing the game with 26 points while Dalton Knecht came alive after a quiet first half.
Knecht scored two first half points on one-of-five shooting from the field before going for 26 second half points on nine-of-13 shooting from the field and four-of-six shooting from three-point range.
After scoring 21 first half points, Tennessee scored 50 second half points and got them back into the game.
But despite the strong second half comeback that put Tennessee in position to steal the win in the final few minutes, the Vols made a number of careless mistakes on both ends which ended their comeback hopes.
Rick Barnes Changes The Game With The Full Court Press
Tennessee was clearly playing better from the jump in the second half but Tolu Smith’s physicality continued to give them issues inside as they struggled to get stops and truly cut into the Bulldogs’ lead.
Things began changing when Tennessee went to the full court trapping press and Mississippi State committed some silly turnovers.
In a 2:01 sequence early in the second half, Mississippi State turned the ball over five times which led directly to 13 Tennessee points including the open three-pointers that got Knecht going.
The Vols didn’t nonstop full court press for the final 15 minutes of the game, that would have been extremely taxing on a number of players who played huge minutes, but they did it pretty consistently. Mississippi State turned it over 13times in the second half which allowed Tennessee to tie the game before falling in a heartbreaker.
Kudos to Rick Barnes, it was a somewhat desperate move when Tennessee had little to lose and it paid off.
Final Stats
Up Next
Tennessee’s heads back on the road Saturday when they’ll face Georgia in Athens. Tipoff is at noon ET. ESPN2 is broadcasting the game.
