Rick Barnes wants No. 5 Tennessee to 'marinate' after SEC Tournament loss to Mississippi State

NASHVILLE — Rick Barnes wasn’t ready to turn the page Friday afternoon, not even close. Inside Tennessee’s locker room at Bridgestone Arena, after the Vols played their worst 40 minutes of basketball of the season in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals, he wanted his team to get even lower. 

“Let’s just sit here and think about how we feel right now,” Barnes said, reiterating the message to his team during his postgame press conference after No. 5 Tennessee’s 73-56 loss to Mississippi State. “Let’s just talk about it. Sit here and marinate in how you feel right now. If you feel like this again, it’s over. 

“I want you to not forget right now what you did. This time of year you want to give it your best.”

The worst version of Tennessee (24-8) on Friday saw the Vols shoot 19-for-62 from the field and just 8-for-33 from the 3-point line. It saw Mississippi State (21-12) jump out to a 38-19 lead at halftime and grow the lead to as much as 23 in the second half, shooting 55.3% from the field, including 22-for-34 inside the 3-point line.

“We just weren’t ready to go out and be as physical as them,” Dalton Knecht said. “We weren’t ready to play.”

‘You have to understand how hard it is to win this time of year’

Zakai Zeigler scored 14 of his 20 points in the seance half, going 7-for-17 from the field and 2-for-9 at the 3-point line. Knecht had 14 points on 4-for-17 shooting, hitting just 2 of 9 3-pointers. 

Jonas Aidoo had four points and 10 rebounds on 2-for-6 shooting, Santiago Vescovi had four points while going 0-for-4 from the 3-point line and Josiah-Jordan James was scoreless, going 0-for-5.

“You have to understand how hard it is to win this time of year,” Barnes said. “If you want to be a team that can play through three days and win a conference tournament, through six (games) and win a national championship, there’s got to be somewhat of a desperate mindset that every possession matters. But we didn’t play with that type of mentality today.”

The Vols played with an identity in the first half that Barnes didn’t even recognize. Tennessee has been punched in the mouth in previous games this season and usually found a way to answer. 

This time? There wasn’t a response.

“Really the first 20 minutes,” Barnes said, “I haven’t seen that team all year, even including practice. I’m sitting there watching it like, Man, maybe it might be good to get this out of our system. 

“We haven’t had one like this where we didn’t respond better. I thought we got impatient, lost our poise, fouling with six seconds on the shot clock, trying to steal the ball when giving up position.”

Vols shot a season-low 31.6% from the field in loss to Mississippi State

The 30.6% Tennessee shot from the floor was its lowest of the season, under the previous season low of 31.0% against Kansas in the Maui Invitational. Tennessee’s 24.2% from the 3-point line was the second-lowest percentage of the season, behind on the 23.8% the Vols shot in the home loss to South Carolina in January, when they went 5-for-21.

“From our standpoint,” Barnes said, “we’re not happy with a lot of things that happened today, things that shouldn’t have happened. There’s nothing that did happen that we can’t fix.”

Losing on the heels of the 85-81 loss to Kentucky on Saturday in Knoxville gave Tennessee its first back-to-back losses since losing three straight against Purdue, Kansas and at North Carolina in November.

The Vols answered the UNC loss with seven straight wins. They won four in a row after the loss at Mississippi State, their next two after losing at home to South Carolina on January 30 and seven straight after the 86-59 loss at Texas A&M on February 10.

But they had a week to answer the Kentucky loss and had no answers against Mississippi State.

“We are who we are right now,” Barnes said, “… we’ve got a week or so to fix it and go back. (We’ll) do what we always do. We have a system that we believe in. We have to scrub it out, look at it. It will go back to a mindset. 

“That’s what I spent a lot of time talking to our team about, our mindset. Where is it? Where was it? Why was it like this today?”

Up Next: Selection Sunday, 6 p.m. ET, CBS

A year ago, after losing to Zeigler to a torn ACL and getting sent home from the SEC Tournament in the quarterfinals against Missouri, Tennessee fought back with a Sweet Sixteen trip, beating Louisiana and Duke during the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament before losing to Florida Atlantic at Madison Square Garden. 

“I’ve had teams … playing well at the end of the year, didn’t do well in the NCAA Tournament,” Barnes said. “I’ve had a couple teams that were limping a little bit, ended up having great runs.”

Tennessee’s run, if there is going to be one, has to start now, with attention turning to the NCAA Tournament bracket reveal on Selection Sunday.

It’s now or never.

“We don’t want our season to end,” Vescovi said. “If you feel like this again, it means that our season is over. We definitely don’t want to feel like this again. We know how talented we are and how far we can go, but we just got to learn from this going forward.

“… We’ve got to figure it out and get ready for the big tournament. That’s what we played for all year.”