Tennessee basketball enters the NCAA Tournament coming of its worst performance of the season in a 73-56 loss against Mississippi State in the SEC Tournament Quarterfinals on Friday afternoon.
For Tennessee to bounce back, it starts with its mindset and that can be in a number of different way.s
“I know how we respond. Nobody works as hard as us,” senior Josiah-Jordan James said following the loss. “We weren’t the confident team that we needed to be today and I know that we’ll come together as a collective over the next couple of days and be ready to go wherever we end up.”
Being the more desperate team was a popular talking point amongst Tennessee players following the game. The Vols have come out slow in a number of their losses this season.
Tennessee hopes approaching games in more of an underdog role and more desperate can help them avoid the poor starts that’s plagued them.
“I think me personally, it’s really hard to be that team that goes down and is always known for we’re going to get back up. I think we have to lose that and start with the team that starts off like that,” junior guard Jahmai Mashack said. “That can’t be us. We can’t be that team that is like, We’re going to give them the first half, the second half… No, that can’t happen.
To be the team we want to be, that starts in the first half. If you’re applying or not, you have to have energy, come in like we’re the underdog. That’s the mindset, that’s going at that point the rest of the season, we’re the underdogs. No matter what. I don’t care what seed we’re playing, we’re going to be the underdogs, play like the underdogs. We’re going to come back from the jump playing defense and rebounding.”
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Slow starts have been a more common issue for Tennessee but things spiraling on them when they play poorly from the game’s offset has showed up a few times as well.
That happened to the Vols in their loss at Mississippi State and they simply must stick to and play within themselves to avoid that issue going forward.
“Overall we have to play smarter basketball,” sophomore forward Tobe Awaka said. “Not play out of ourselves and understand we all want to win but we have to do it within team basketball and team principles.”
Despite entering the NCAA Tournament on just its second losing streak of the season, Tennessee still has plenty of confidence that they’re going to make a deep run in the Big Dance.
“We’re going to get that fixed for sure,” Mashack said. “I think we’ve shown it this whole seen, that we’re a team with resilience. I think games like this just build toughness for us. … We’re going to look at what we have to do ourselves and as a team and we’re not going to go through what we went through today.
“I think we have as good of a chance as anybody,” Awaka said. “I feel like when we’re playing our best basketball we’re the best team in the country.”
One Response
Good luck to the VOLS. I hope they at least win one or two more and send Barnes off on a positive note.