Tennessee basketball set the tone on its first defensive possession of the game. Mississippi State’s Cameron Matthews drove into traffic and Zakai Zeigler was there to take the ball from him and take it the other way.
After a rare bad defensive performance in Saturday’s loss at Vanderbilt and two games last season where Mississippi State “manhandled” Tennessee, the Vols responded on the defensive end in a 68-56 win on Tuesday night.
“Just proud of the overall team effort,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. “Really thought it was a terrific team effort. And we needed it.”
The Vols’ defense was not up to their high standard in their loss at Vanderbilt and was one of the leading causes for the upset loss. Rick Barnes built his Tennessee program on defense and they’re not accustomed to losing games like that.
After a length film session, Tennessee was locked in and ready to go against No. 14 Mississippi State.
“We watched film. We saw our mistakes,” center Felix Okpara said. “We just cleaned it up and we go onto the next then onto the next one. I think for us, we see the reasons why we didn’t come out strong defensively and we cleaned it up.”
“I would just say preparation,” shooting guard Chaz Lanier said. “The coaches really prepared us on the scouting and the player personnel. They had really good players all around, good guards and good bigs. Just honing in on what we do and being us.”
Communication and scouting report details was an issue at Vanderbilt but Tennessee didn’t let that repeat itself against Mississippi State. The Vols came out dialed, holding Mississippi State to 16 points in the first half while forcing the Bulldogs to shoot just 22% from the field.
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The Bulldogs found life early in the second half, capitalizing on Tennessee turnovers to score 15 points by the first media timeout. That cut Tennessee’s lead to seven points but the Vols responded with a decisive 6:23 stretch where Mississippi State scored just two points.
Tennessee responded defensively after a disappointing performance against Vanderbilt, but they responded to physicality after two disappointing performances against Mississippi State a season ago. In two meetings last year, the Bulldogs combined to outscore Tennessee 78-46 in the paint. Both teams scored 18 points in the paint on Tuesday night.
“He (Barnes) challenged us to be the tougher team,” Okpara said. “Being the tougher team meaning we got to rebound. I think that was just the emphasis on this game. We knew they had bigger bodies and we knew we had to hit guys and we came out and did that.”
Okpara was a big part of that physicality, grabbing a season-high 12 rebounds wile defending the paint. Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans even noted that Okpara gives Tennessee “more of a defensive rim presence” compared to a season ago and that the center is “stronger” than he looks.
“He’s brought physicality,” Barnes said. “We lack some of that.”
The combination of defense and physicality delivered Tennessee a win over Mississippi State. The Vols will have to have both in spades when they head on the road to face No. 1 Auburn on Saturday night.