Rick Barnes reveals what he learned about his team against Missouri

With 17:33 to play in the second half of the Missouri–Tennessee game, Tiger forward Kobe Brown splashed a triple to put his team up by 17 points in Thomson-Boling arena. Mizzou was lighting up the best defense in the country on their home court. However, the Volunteers dug deep, going on a 32-15 run over the next nine minutes to completely erase the Tiger lead and tie the game at 64 apiece.

Down the stretch, the two SEC powers continued to battle as Missouri staved any further Tennessee runs to keep it tight down the stretch. Then, with the Volunteers up two points and Missouri in possession of the final shot, DeAndre Gholston hit a 30-foot three-point runner to end the game at the buzzer — 86-85 Missouri.

Despite the gut-wrenching loss, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes revealed this week that he was proud of the fight his team showed. Poor defensive performances can snowball against an offense as high-powered as Missouri’s, but credit Tennessee, because with their backs up against the wall, they were able to get back to the defensive tenacity that’s defined their team. Just unfortunate to see the game end the way it did.

So here was Barnes on what he saw from his group in the thrilling comeback:

“I think it just shows you our team. Again, there’s a lot of basketball left to play and the fact that we did what we did and guys are ready to go in and play. What we need, it goes back to we need more consistency out of certain players. I can’t say enough about Tyreke (Key) and Jahmai (Mashak) and Tobe (Awaka). Certainly (Zakai Ziegler) and (Santiago Vescovi), both those guys played their hearts out. They let their emotion get going a little bit where they both had some uncharacteristic fouls that they shouldn’t have but that’s just from being high level competitors and going at it.

“Then Jonas (Aidoo) I thought did a good job. I thought Olivier (Nkamhoua) showed he could really guard when he came back in the game in the last couple minutes there. We need that all the time. I thought Uros (Plavsic’s) minutes were there but games get into matchups and what I think we have to do. When we made the adjustments that I feel like we had to make— I’m really, again, proud of the fight these guys put up.”

A brutal week of basketball for Tennessee fans after losing back to back games on three-pointers at the buzzer. However, you’d be a fool to give up on this team. Because if not for two miracle heaves with just nanoseconds left on the clock, UT would be right in the thick of a race for a one-seed. Still plenty of reason for optimism in Rocky Top, and Rick Barnes made sure to remind everyone.