Igor Milicic Jr. on injury report for No. 4 Tennessee's game at Ole Miss
Igor Milicic Jr. was listed as probable on Tuesday night’s SEC Injury Report for No. 4 Tennessee, ahead of Wednesday night’s game at Ole Miss. The injury report will be updated roughly two hours before the 9 p.m. Eastern Time start (TV: ESPN2) at The Pavilion at Ole Miss in Oxford.
Milicic did not practice due to illness Tuesday afternoon at Food City Center, before the Vols left for Ole Miss.
Tennessee closes the regular-season schedule against South Carolina on Saturday, on Senior Day in Knoxville.
Sickness has been an issue the Tennessee roster recently. Senior guard Jordan Gainey was a game-time decision at LSU last week due to flu-like symptoms. He played a season-low 17 minutes off the bench, scoring five points on 2-for-7 shooting.
Igor Milicic: 10.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists in 26.6 minutes per game
Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said last week, when asked about wanting Chaz Lanier to be more aggressive and take more shots, that Lanier has also been sick recently.
“We’ve had some guys under the weather and he’s been one of them,” Barnes said, “but he needs to (shoot more). We need him to, he needs to and so we’ll see.”
Milicic is Tennessee’s fourth-leading scorer at 10.2 points per game and lead the Vols in rebounding at 7.5 per game. He’s shooting 47.6% from the field and 31.6% from the 3-point line in 26.6 minutes per game, starting all 28 games he’s played in this season.
Milicic has scored just 12 points over Tennessee’s last three games, with five in the win at Texas A&M, four at LSU and three on Saturday in the win over Alabama. He’s 4-for-16 from the field and 2-for-9 from the 3-point line in the three-game stretch.
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He had 19 in the home loss against Kentucky on January 28 and 21 in the win over Missouri on February 5.
Igor Milicic trying to find how to better ‘connect’ for Vols
Tennessee assistant coach Gregg Polinsky said before practice Tuesday that he doesn’t feel like Milicic is pressing offensively, but is instead trying to do what Barnes has asked of him.
“Igor has a unique ability at 6-10 to facilitate,” Polinsky said, “and we all know there’s a lot of pressure on Zakai to do that. Igor is trying to alleviate some of that. Coach wants him to do that. So I think what Igor’s trying to figure out, we’ve all seen him score the ball. That’s something he’s always been able to do, but how do I connect?”
Milicic is second on the team in assists, with 64. Polinsky said connect was the term used when Milicic talked with Barnes.
“Like, how do I connect and be productive and help this basketball team scoring,” Polinsky said, “but yet facilitating and being able to play out on the floor and making reads and getting guy shots because that’s a unique thing at his size and skillset that we have not had here.
“We’ve had a lot of things from different guys,” Polinksy added, “but we haven’t had that on that kind of level. So I think that’s more of it, him trying to figure it out. And again, we got to remember, like he’s been here less than a year, so hopefully he’s going to connect it tomorrow night.”
