If I had told you Tennessee beat Mississippi State by nine on Wednesday night, Vols' fans would be thrilled, right? Well, not exactly because of the way it happened. Tennessee led by 23 in the second half and looked well on its way to another comfortable win until everything unraveled. Mississippi State fired off an 18-0 run, and all of a sudden, the Vols were staring at a five-point lead.
Rick Barnes attributed effort and turnovers to the lapse.
"Yeah, that's the one thing when I talked to them I said, 'How do we let that happen?' And again, to this team, they're like, 'We had an 18-0 run?' Like, they were shocked. And you can't turn the ball over, give the ball to them out front. But we had some open shots that you got to make. But you put it all together, we just went through a period where I thought we let up."
There is no doubt that Tennessee can build a lead against good teams, but keeping the lead is another story. Barnes also harped on the fact that Tennessee gets too comfortable when they have the lead.
"it goes back to concentration and not getting relaxed. And that kind of has been the story of our team. We get a lead and we start doing those things."
When it comes to passing Barnes was less than pleased.
"Everybody's getting better. Everybody's understanding it. It's getting smarter. I think we got a team that plays hard," said Barnes. "They wanna do the right thing, but our passing's not crisp like it is. I mean, we throw some horrendous passes. We've got to get better with that, and we harp on it all the time, but those are the areas that we can definitely get better in."
How does Tennessee avoid this?
Honestly, I'm not sure, and I don't think Rick Barnes knows either, or else it wouldn't keep happening, but I can offer some mediocre suggestions for the Hall of Fame coach.
I think it all comes down to staying intense, and maybe it sounds cheesy, but playing like it's a tied game, no matter the score. Is that maybe a little corny? Probably, but when this team gets the lead, they completely fall apart. If Barnes and the team's leaders can keep the intensity the same, I think the leads won't slowly fall apart.
Something needs to change because this team is a very good squad, but the inability to hold a lead will bite them again, like it has versus Kentucky twice.