'They fought through it': Vols battled injury, illness to go 2-0 on road at Mississippi State, LSU

It was bad enough Tuesday night at Humphrey Coliseum in Starkville when Santiago Vescovi came out of the tunnel dressed in sweats before No. 9 Tennessee faced Mississippi State on the road. It was even worse when Tyreke Key never left the locker room, missing the game with an illness and putting the Vols down two senior starters in the backcourt.

Both players returned Saturday at LSU, but this time it was Vescovi that was dealing with an illness. And it was 7-foot-1 senior center Uros Plavsic who did not dress and was not on the bench after he became ill Friday night. 

After going with the same starting lineup for eight straight games, and 14 times in the first 16 games of the season, Rick Barnes had to adjust on the fly with two new starting lineups in as many games this week. 

Vols win two road games by a combined 32 points at Mississippi State, LSU

The Vols didn’t miss a beat, storming past Mississippi State in the second half, winning 70-59, then rolling over LSU 77-56 at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge. 

“I’m proud of these guys, I really am,” Barnes said after the game. “Simply because we haven’t been able to do a lot of what we like to do in practice with it.”

Whatever changes Tennessee (16-3, 6-1 SEC) made in practice need to stick. The Vols went small against LSU, starting Josiah-Jordan James at the four and Olivier Nkamhoua at the five, with Zakai Zeigler at point guard, Vescovi at shooting guard and Julian Phillips on the wing, and rolled from the start.

James scored a season-high 22 points, Zeigler had 12 points and 10 assists in his second double-double of the season and Key and Phillips scored 10 each. 

Tennessee led by 17 at halftime, extended the lead to 27 midway through the second half and hit 12 3-point shots, tying a season high in SEC play.

“We have a bunch of guys under the weather right now,” Barnes said. “Santi was not feeling good. Did very little in practice yesterday and tried. Julian wasn’t feeling great. Obviously got some other guys, Uros, that haven’t felt well. Really proud of them, the way they came in and fought through it.”

James, who played a season-high 34 minutes at Mississippi State, played another 31 at LSU, going 9-for-16 from the floor and 4-for-6 from the 3-point line. Zeigler, Phillips, Key and Vescovi hit two 3-pointers each. 

“Josiah, we’ve really sort of kind of tried to use the games to get him where he needs to be with his cardio,” Barnes said of the senior wing who missed eight games earlier this season due to knee soreness. “… I do think he helps Julian and Santi and  ‘Z’ being on the court, because they’ve played a lot — other than Julian — of basketball together.” 

Up Next: No. 9 Tennessee vs. Georgia, Wednesday, 7 p.m. ET, SEC Network

Regardless of the illness running through the roster, Barnes said the Vols had planned to start the smaller lineup, with Plavsic coming off the bench had he been available. 

“We had made up our minds the last two days,” he said. 

The reviews were positive after the game.

“There’s a lot of ball movement, player movement,” James said. “I feel like we can space the floor and there’s a lot of room to drive. We can shoot the ball at a high level and I feel like the last two days we really focused in and honed in on that and that’s why were able to come out and execute so well.”

“A lot of teams, they struggle to guard us in it,” added Zeigler, who has 36 points, 14 assists and eight rebounds over his last two games. “It is hard for them to find matchups with us because primarily everybody out there when you go small ball is really good defenders. There is no letup on the defensive end. It is really on the offensive end that it boosts us up a lot. We give teams a lot more than they can handle with the small ball lineup.”

There will be still more for other teams to handle after Tennessee gets healthy after going 2-0 on the road this week. The Vols return home, hoping to get healthy before hosting Georgia on Wednesday and No. 7 Texas on Saturday.

“What I told these guys,” Barnes said, “we’re a good basketball team right now, but we’ve got to get a lot better. Whatever we need to do, we need to all get better. Coaches have to get better, players have to get better, because there’s a lot of basketball left. We can’t stay pat where we’re at right now.”