Posing A Question For Tonight’s Game
By Donaven Cook
Auburn gets a whole week off and we have to play the 15th-ranked team in the country in a mid-week game? What kind of crock-a-chit is that!?
The Mississippi State Bulldogs 15-3 (3-2) come to Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center tonight to play the Volunteers at 7:00 ET on ESPN2.
Coming off an overtime win against in-state rival Ole Miss on Saturday, the Bulldogs are a more than formidable foe.
We all remember the SEC Tournament last year and how miserable that was.
Averaging 82.9 points per game as a team this year, the Bulldogs have only lost in conference to No. 1 Auburn and by five points to Kentucky.
Led by sophomore guard Josh Hubbard with 16.9 points per game, they will look to repeat their performance against Rick Barnes’ bunch.
Tennessee had a bad weekend.
Head writer [and aggregator, editor, good-looking guy, czar of website] Cody McClure wrote a post-game piece titled “Well, Shit” that perfectly summed up the Vols’ performance against Vanderbilt on Saturday.
Chaz Lanier went 4-of-6 from three-point range and seemingly broke his shooting slump.
Felix Okpara, Igor Milicic, and Zakai Zeigler all scored 16 points each to go alongside Lanier’s 17.
Usually you would look at that box score with all those players above 15 points and be happy … We were not happy.
You’re going to take some losses in this league, but in-state rival Vanderbilt in mid-January wasn’t one you needed to take.
Neither is Mississippi State at home.
Listen, I believe I speak for everyone when saying that if this team were to make it to a Final Four, we wouldn’t give two thoughts about a mid-week game in January when the time comes.
Until that comes to pass, though, the Vols need to position themselves as best as possible for a deep tournament run — and Quad 1 wins are a good thing to stockpile in doing so.
I’ll leave you guys with a question.
In relation to the possibility of beating Auburn on the road Saturday, do you think it’s more likely the guys win and ride the momentum into Auburn or they drop their first home game and it lights a fire under them to go into Auburn fired up and they then play their best game of the year?
I want to win both. That is the fun part about sports … Winning.