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Vols looking for back-to-back wins

When Tennessee (12-12, 5-6) travels to Missouri (8-16, 1-10) this weekend the Vols have a chance to do something they haven’t managed to pull off yet in SEC play and that’s win consecutive conference games.

Rick Barnes’ team has won only once away from home this year, an 80-75 win at Mississippi State, but this weekend’s road trip to face the last place Tigers is by far the easiest in the league.

The Vols are coming off their most lopsided win of the season, a 71-45 smackdown of Auburn on Tuesday, so some might be inclined to think the team is taking some momentum into Columbia, Mo.

That may turn out to be the case, but Barnes has seen enough inconsistency from his squad this season to last him a coaching lifetime. As a result, he’s not taking anything for granted when it comes to expecting some carry-over from Tuesday’s performance.

“I don’t know what to expect,” Barnes said with good humor when asked about building some momentum off of this week’s win. “All I can tell you is that we had a good practice yesterday. We know that we have to continue to get better, that’s something we talk about every day. We still feel we have to be better offensively, there are things we have to do better on defense. That’s all we can do is just try to improve on what you’re doing.

“It gets down to that one big word, consistency. What are we going to get? We still don’t know what we’re going to get every single night. I don’t know what I’m going to get from every single guy. As I’ve said, I’ve got a pretty good feel for what we’re going to get from Kevin and Armani and even Kyle. Kyle seems to have found his role and what we need him to do, though we still need him to score more. Beyond that, to be totally frank and honest, I don't know what I’m going to get.”

The Vols aren’t in position to take anyone lightly but Missouri is limping through the SEC season. They’re lone win came at home over the same Auburn team the Vols just manhandled and the Tigers own a league worst -12.1 scoring margin in SEC games.

That record is due in large part to a sputtering offense that puts up a league worst 67.3 ppg against SEC opponents. The Tigers are 13th in the league in field goal percentage (41.8%) and dead last in three-point accuracy (30.1%) since SEC play began. Leading scorer Kevin Puryear (6-7, 236) goes for just 11.3 ppg.

Missouri is also one of the few teams in the league that won’t present a huge challenge to the Vols in terms of matching up size wise. Starting center Ryan Rosberg (6-10, 260) pulls down just 3.7 rpg and 6-5 Namon Wright leads the Tigers in rebounding at 4.7 per game.

Tennessee’s rebounding numbers have slipped (-1.8 margin) as SEC play has worn on but they’re still not as bad as the Tigers (-2.2).

Barnes knows what the won-loss record says, but he doesn’t anticipate an easy time of it against Kim Anderson’s team.

“I think Kim has done a great job dealing with the situations he’s had to deal with this year. His teams play hard and I think that’s a compliment to him and his team, with what they’ve had to deal with, that they’re still competing very hard,” Barnes said of what he’s seen from the Tigers.

“You go back to their last game against Vanderbilt, they got down early but fought back and won the second half. That shows character, a commitment to what he’s trying to get done and what they’re trying to build.”

Barnes added that he anticipated Missouri to use an assortment of different defensive looks at least in part to try and control tempo. The Vols, who average 77 ppg in league play will be looking to operate at much quicker pace than the Tigers want to play at.

“They’re going to play some man and some zone, I’m sure we’ll see some 2-3 and some three-quarter court pressure to slow us down some. That’s how they play,” Barnes offered.

“I certainly know it’s not going to be an easy game. We’re going to have to go and play really well because they’re going to compete.”

Tip-off for the match-up is at 3 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the SEC Network.

SPEAKING OF CONSISTENCY

Two of the most inconsistent Vols, at least on the offensive end, have been Robert Hubbs and Devon Baulkman. Both were decidedly ‘on’ against Auburn though, with Hubbs leading the scoring with a career high 20 points while Baulkman chipped in with 14.

Baulkman hadn’t scored in double digits in any of the team’s past six games and hadn’t even topped three points in the last four, while Hubbs—incredibly—had never once led the team in scoring.

Typically, Barnes proved a stern taskmaster when asked if he felt like something may have ‘clicked’ with either player, with the head coach suggesting that he’s more interested in seeing something click for them in terms of rebounding and defense.

“Watching tape of those guys, and I showed both of them, they made some shots but they still didn’t do all the things we need them to do,” Barnes said with his trademark candor. ‘We need both of those guys to be great offensive rebounders, every single time down they need to have the mindset that they’re going to go to the boards.

“Offensively, they need to be guys who go and get us extra possessions. I’d put Admiral in that group too.

“Defensively they were better but they’re not as good as we need them to be.”

One player who is drawing some hard earned praise from his head coach is Shembari Phillips. The freshman got his first career start against Auburn and ended up playing 31 minutes.

He didn't put up huge offensive numbers, finishing with six points on 2-of-9 shooting, but he didn’t have a single turnover and played the kind of defense that kept Barnes from pulling the plug on his minutes.

The head coach doesn’t dole out compliments freely, but Phillips’ progress had him sounding downright benevolent on Friday.

“He’s getting better because he’s practicing better. He’s starting to understand,” Barnes said of Phillips. “He told me he still needs to slow down because he’s not seeing it the way he needs to see it.

“I think where he’s improved the most is defensively, that’s where we need him to be a junkyard dog. When you’re doing that you get tired. He’s working much harder on the defensive end.”

CHANCE AT .500

Amazingly, given the expectations and the challenges Barnes and his staff faced with this roster, Tennessee is sitting just three games out of first place in a jumbled SEC field. Even crazier is the fact that had the Vols not blown some huge late game leads against Texas A&M and Alabama they’d be sitting in the thick of the title hunt at 7-4.

Who saw that coming?

Well, maybe Barnes.

The head coach may not have predicted he’d have a shot at being .500 in the SEC with two-thirds of the season gone but he maintained from the day he took the job that he wasn’t looking at his inaugural season as a rebuilding year.

Is Barnes satisfied with the won-loss record at this point? Hardly.

“I’m not happy with the record,” Barnes answered succinctly. “During one of our last film sessions we were looking through some statistics I had on the board and beside that was a list of our games. I want through them and asked about certain ones, ‘you think we could have won that?,’ and they all said yes. And I did the same thing with some of the wins, asked them if we could have lost those, and they said yes.

“I’m a believer that anything can happen in college basketball and I’ll tell you this—and I’m being very truthful—if we play up to our ability I’m sure we can beat everybody left on our schedule.”

As wide open as the SEC has looked to this point—Kentucky, South Carolina and LSU sit tied atop the league at 8-3—it’s hardly unthinkable that Tennessee could go to Nashville and make some noise in the tournament next month. Likewise, it’s not unthinkable that the Vols show up and lose their first game either.

Consider though, Tennessee hammered first-place Kentucky in their only meeting and took care of business against South Carolina. The Vols also beat Florida, tied for second place, and had the Aggies on the mat before falling apart.

This is by far the easiest week on the Vols' conference schedule with Auburn and Missouri and for SEC seeding purposes the team will need to capitalize against the Tigers in what looks like a winnable game.

Of the remaining six contests, three are arguably the toughest road trips on the Vols' schedule; at Kentucky, at Vandy and at South Carolina. Making this match-up and home games against LSU, Arkansas and Ole Miss, it not 'must-wins,' at least 'need to' wins.

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