Missouri beats Tennessee in SEC Tournament quarterfinals, 79-71
NASHVILLE — Missouri’s 3-point daggers got the best of Tennessee again. This time it was in the quarterfinal round of the SEC Tournament, eliminating the Vols 79-71 Friday afternoon at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
Nick Honor hit a three with 1:45 left to put Mizzou up three points and, after a Tennessee turnover on the ensuing inbound, D’Moi Hodge hit a long three to make it a 75-69 lead with 1:25 left.
Tennessee (23-10) got 17 points from Santiago Vescovi and 16 from Tyreke Key, with the two combining to go 7-for-16 from the 3-point line. Olivier Nkamhoua had 11 points and 10 rebounds and Jahmai Mashack scored 14.
Missouri (24-8), which beat Tennessee 86-85 in Knoxville on February 11 on DeAndre Gholston’s long, running buzzer-beating 3-point shot, got 24 points from Kobe Brown and 26 from Hodge. Gholston scored 10.
The Vols advanced on Thursday with a 70-55 win over Ole Miss but missed out on the semifinal round of the SEC Tournament for the first time since 2017.
Mashack drove baseline and scored on a reverse layup with 2:06 left, but Honor hit from the 3-point line on the other end, giving Mizzou a 72-69 lead one possession remove Honor drove to the rim and scored.
Tennessee led by eight a minute into the second half, its biggest lead of the day at that point, after Nkamhoua scored to open the second half, followed by a Vescovi corner three.
Missouri answered by going 3-for-4 over the first four minutes after halftime, after going 3-for-14 in the first half. Mizzou went from down eight to up one over a span of two minutes, 39 seconds.
The Missouri lead was four with 11:33 left, after a Noah Carter three out of a media timeout, but Key answered with back-to-back threes to get the Vols back up two.
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Jahmai Mashack’s buzzer-beater gave Vols 33-30 lead at halftime
Brown hit a three to tie the game with just nine seconds left in the first half, but Mashack had time to dribble just beyond midcourt and launch a long three at the horn, hitting the shot for a 33-30 Tennessee lead at the break.
James hit a corner three as time expired on the first half against Ole Miss on Thursday, giving the Vols a 39-33 lead on the way to a 70-55 win over the Rebels.
Mashack and Vescovi had nine points each in the first half for Tennessee, but Vescovi played just 11 minutes before halftime after picking up two fouls. James played just eight minutes after getting two early fouls of his own.
The Vols shot 46.4 percent from the field and went 5-for-11 at the 3-point line in the opening 20 minutes.
Brown had 12 poitns in the first half for Mizzou, ahead of nine from Hodge and six from Gholston.
Up Next: Selection Sunday, 6 p.m. ET, CBS
With the loss to Missouri, Tennessee now awaits the release of the NCAA Tournament bracket on Selection Sunday. The 68-team field will be revealed on CBS starting at 6 p.m. Eastern Time.
The Vols were a No. 3 seed in most bracket projections entering the NCAA Tournament. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi on Friday night had Tennessee as a No. 3 seed playing in Greensboro, N.C., in the East Region.
