'A great character win': What the Vols learned about themselves in shorthanded win at Mississippi State

STARKVILLE, Miss. — Julian Phillips felt like he didn’t need to describe just how hard of a film session it was for No. 9 Tennessee after the 63-56 loss to Kentucky on Saturday in Knoxville. The performance was bad enough on its own, then that much worse after Rick Barnes picked it apart.

“As y’all can imagine it would be,” Phillips said Tuesday night. “We learned a lot because there was a lot to learn from it. It wasn’t our best performance, we knew that so coach, he did what he does.

“Everybody got together and we just knew our next outing had to be one of our better performances.”

That outing was against Mississippi State Tuesday night at Humphrey Coliseum. And it was shorthanded, with Tennessee missing two senior starters.

The Vols didn’t have Santiago Vescovi, who aggravated the left shoulder sprain in the first half against Kentucky, the same one that sidelined him for two games last month. Tyreke Key came down with an illness after shootaround Tuesday morning.

The response was delayed without the two, after 10 turnovers in the first half dug the Vols into a nine-point hole, but came through a career-high 24 points from Zakai Zeigler and 18 points and 11 rebounds from Phillips, rallying their team to a 70-59 win to beat Mississippi State for the second time in two weeks. 

Vols rallied for ‘a great character win’ at Mississippi State

“That is a great character win for our team,” Barnes said. “The fact that we had two starters out and starting the game with a lineup that I promise you they have never practiced together.”

It looked that way early, with Zeigler committing five turnovers in the first half while Tennessee (15-3, 5-1 SEC) struggled to find any offense. But the Vols scored the last six points of the first half, to tie the game at 23-23 at halftime, then got a combined 29 points from Zeigler and Phillips in the second half. 

Josiah-Jordan James added 13 points and four rebounds and Olivier Nkamhoua had seven points and nine boards.

“I think Jo said it,” Barnes said of James. “He said we’ve been trained, we’ve been taught, next man up, whoever it might be. I don’t think you go into any game thinking you’re going to be without two starters. And it goes back to what I said all along. I don’t know if it matters who starts, it matters who can finish and get out there.”

Forget finishing. Tennessee never got started Saturday against Kentucky. The Vols were outrebounded 43-23 on their home floor, shot just 3-for-21 from the 3-point line and got beat at their own game, with the rival Wildcats playing the more tough, more physical brand of basketball. 

The film session afterward, Zeigler said, was exactly what the team needed to sit through.

“We deserved every part of that game, of that Kentucky game, of us losing,” he said. “They came in and kicked our butts. No questions about that. They did what they had to do and we didn’t do anything we had to do. That film room the next day, we heard everything we needed to hear. From the first guy to the last guy. It was nothing but Coach Barnes being honest with us.”

And the players had some time to be honest with themselves, too. 

“The day after the game, we spoke about it,” Zeigler said. “We spoke about it without the coaches, too, just as a team. We know that no matter what happens, we’re the ones out there on that court and Coach Barnes is going to be Coach Barnes. He’s always going to coach us. 

“He just want what’s best for us and at the end of the day,” Zeigler continued, “we can’t go into any game too big on ourselves or anything like that. We just have to come into every game knowing that we’re the underdogs and that we’re the hunter, that we’re not the ones getting hunted.”

Up Next: No. 9 Tennessee at LSU, Saturday, 4 p.m. ET, ESPN

Barnes focused on defense and rebounding after the Kentucky loss. The two things Tennessee does best went missing on one of the biggest stages of the season. 

“That’s not how we usually are,” Phillips said.

Despite the sloppy start Tuesday night, Tennessee stayed in the game thanks to both defense and rebounding. The Vols held Mississippi State to just 30.8 percent shooting from the floor and only 12.5 percent from the 3-point line in the first half.

They limited State to 10 points off their 11 turnovers and the Vols won the rebounding battle 21-16 before halftime, sticking around long enough to use the late 6-0 run to tie the game at the break. 

Then the second half started. 

Zeigler, who played the full 40 minutes, scored 16 of his 24 after halftime, going 4-for-4 from the 3-point line. Phillips had 13 points and seven rebounds in 19 minutes in the second half

For this Tennessee team, coming off that kind of loss, without two starters on the road, it was more than just a big second half. 

“Before the game we talked about character a lot,” Zeigler said. “That was a win that showed a lot of character because a lot of teams would go out there and still dwell on the last game. We didn’t do that. 

“We were just ourselves and despite us having two starters down, two of our main players, we went out there and just showed teams we can still do it.”