Breaking news’:Five star 2028 EDGE Jackson and committed to Tennessee Vols football over…
Breaking news’:Five star 2028 EDGE Jackson and committed to Tennessee Vols football over…
Fourth-ranked Tennessee trailed by double-digits early in the second half before using a shooting barrage to beat No. 15 Missouri, 85-81 on Wednesday.
After missing the Vols’ 20-point triumph of Florida four days earlier, Zakai Zeigler and Igor Milicic Jr. looked back to full health, leading the team with 21 points each and headlining Tennessee’s surge.
TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM
The Vols (19-4, 6-4 SEC) shot 50% from the field and 66.7% from three-point range in their best offensive performance in league play, while out-scoring the Tigers (16-7, 6-3) in the paint, 34-18.
Here is everything Tennessee head coach
On Missouri, scoring 57 points in the second half
“A lot of respect for Missouri. Dennis (Gates) has done a great job with his team. From the year they had (in 2023-24), the way he’s changed just the entire mindset, coming back from when he was there his first year. Really a phenomenal job by him, getting his team ready to play. And they’re always tough to play against. And he does a great job. He believes in the system, what he’s doing. But I was really disappointed in the first half, because of the things that we talked about, we didn’t take advantage of it. Honestly, at halftime, I didn’t even think we were looking to take advantage of what we wanted to get out of it.
“Second half, I was really proud of the fact that we executed better, took shots, got better shots. And (we) can’t start the game with (missing) those shots around the rim. They’re tough. And missing free throws early. But again, like always, I thought our defense kept us close enough and we got down and we had a little spurt there to get back in it. But as well as I thought we played in the second half, again, give them credit for what happened in the first half, but we did not play well at all.”
On using lineup of Zakai Zeigler, Chaz Lanier, Jordan Gainey and Igor Milicic Jr. in second half
“Offensively, you get guys that are, people are afraid to leave shooters. And we get guys in position where, again, they switch or hoping to be able to take advantage of those switching situations and create some of those match ups and then play out of that. But they’re concerned about shooters. But the first half we did exactly what we talked about. We would make one cut and stop playing. You need to move them because they do a great job of switching out, taking your cuts away. And we talked about back cut after back cut, and guys were just making a straight cut that we didn’t even want and didn’t even try to look to slip to the open area. But we did, again, a better job in the second half.”
On what Tennessee did well during 10-minute shooting barrage in second half
“We just went to a set where it started with Jordan. He has a way. People want to down and people want to keep him off cuts. They can’t in that set. He has got two ways he can go. It goes back to the question about what makes that effective, they are afraid to leave either Jordan (Gainey) or afraid to leave Chaz (Lanier) in those situations. Now, it is hard for them to down it. If they are not going to switch the five, more times than not, you will play off that. If you are going to make the cut to the top, you can get a slip and hope to create a mismatch there. We had a chance to finish it a couple times. We could have driven it, but we didn’t because we didn’t create the double gap and wedge like we want to. I thought (Zeigler) putting it on the money, they got separation, got turned around and got ready to shoot it. That gives us a chance to go rebound it, too, especially from the backside.”
