Rick Barnes used interesting tactic to prepare team for Missouri

Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes didn’t want a repeat of last year’s game against Missouri. The Tigers walked into Thompson-Boling Arena and handed the Volunteers a 73-64 loss in January of 2021.

Rick Barnes made sure that loss was fresh on the mind of his players, making them watch film from the game entering a Tuesday road matchup against Missouri. That tactic seemed to work, as Tennessee returned the favor by dealing the Tigers an 80-61 blowout loss in Columbia.

“Our point was that we’ve got to take today and talk more about us,” Barnes explained in his postgame press conference. “We talked about what we had to do. Then we went out to practice and were trying to nurse some guys who were there. A number of guys didn’t really practice and the guys that were out there were really locked in. I said to the team last night how hard I thought Quentin (Diboundje), Justin (Powell) and Jahmai (Mashack), how hard those guys worked. They really set a great tone for what we were gonna see here today. Today’s shootaround, you could tell it again. We were locked in.

“We’ve got some guys that remember, Missouri walked in our building last year and they spanked us pretty good from start to finish. They outplayed us, outworked us, out-toughed us. They did everything. …They came in and put it on us. So we showed some film from that game and said, ‘Hey, you can throw the records out. They’re gonna give this effort because they do every night.’ So we watched how they totally dominated us last year in Knoxville.”

Missouri managed to keep it close throughout the first half, but a 3-pointer from Santiago Vescovi gave the Volunteers a 36-27 leading heading into halftime. However, Tennessee went on a 16-3 run over a six-minute period in the second to take a 57-36 lead with 10:48 remaining.

Kennedy Chandler led the Volunteers with 23 points of 9-of-12 from the floor in the victory. He also added eight boards, six assists and two steals. Tennessee finished the game shooting 50% from 3-point range, led by Vescovi who made four of his six attempts from deep.

The Volunteers improved to 20-7 on the season with the victory. They have won six of their past seven games and appear to be heating up just in time for postseason play. On3’s latest bracketology projections, released Tuesday, list them as a four seed.

Tennessee has three games remaining in the regular season, beginning with a huge matchup at 4 p.m. ET Saturday against No. 3 Auburn.