Tennessee played one of its worst first halves of the season with its offense looking lifeless on Wednesday. Then the Vols turned in one of their best offensive halves of the season to surge past No. 15 Missouri 85-81.
Here’s three quick takeaways on the win.
Sloppy First Half Plagues Tennessee
The Vols started as well offensively as they could have possibly hoped for with Zakai Zeigler drilling a triple on the game’s first possession. But it was the next three possessions that proved to be costly and a bad omen for the rest of the game.
Tennessee turned it over on its next three trips down the court and while Missouri failed to score before the first media timeout, the Vols did little to capitalize on it. Tennessee led 5-0 at the first media timeout and the strong shooting Tigers made them pay for it.
Missouri came out on an 8-0 run out of the timeout and turned it into a 13-2 run to take control of the game midway through the first half.
When Tennessee made runs they would follow it up with turnovers, missed defensive rebounds and missed free throws. The Vols were sloppy in the first half and it made it difficult for them to string anything together.
Missouri took a six-point lead into the locker room at halftime due in large part to an 8-2 turnover advantage. Tennessee cleaned things up in the second half and it was a big part of its improved offensive play.
Igor Milicic Jr And Zakai Zeigler Carry Tennessee The Load
Tennessee knocked off then-No. 5 Florida on Saturday afternoon without starters Zakai Zeigler and Igor Milicic. It was that duo that carried Tennessee offensively against the Tigers.
Milicic was Tennessee’s best player against Missouri. He sparked the Vols offense with seven points in the first half when they struggled to get anything going. Then with Tennessee trailing by 11 points early in the second half, Milicic scored eight points in a 15-4 Tennessee run that tied the game up.
The 6-foot-10 forward made his first seven shots from the field and went on to score 21 points. On top of his scoring, Milicic affected the game by dishing out five assists, grabbing 10 rebounds and blocking four shots.
Zeigler broke out of his shooting slump by knocking down a perfect four-of-four three-point attempts. Outside of a pair of bad turnovers on the last possession of the first half and first possession of the second half, Zeigler did a great job of taking care of the ball.
Tennessee’s point guard finished the game with 21 points while dishing out eight assists.
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It All Looks Good When Shots Are Going In
Rick Barnes has a saying he oft repeats.
“It all looks good when shots are going in.”
His point? Sometimes you play well and shoot poorly and it looks like a really bad performance. Sometimes you don’t play all that well, shoot the ball really well and it looks like you played great. There was certainly an element of the latter for Tennessee against Missouri.
Just eight days after shooting 11-of-45 from three-point range in a loss against Kentucky, Tennessee made 10-of-15 three-point attempts against Missouri. The Tigers did a good job of not letting Tennessee take too many attempts from deep but the Vols connected at an incredible rate when they did.
The red-hot three-point shooting was incredibly needed on a night where Tennessee shot just 10-of-20 on shots at the rim and started the game poorly at the foul line before icing the game well late.
Final Stats
Up Next
Tennessee is back on the road this Saturday after a three-game home stand. The Vols head west to Norman to face unranked Oklahoma. Tipoff from Lloyd Noble Center is at noon ET. ESPN is broadcasting the game.
