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The No. 17 Tennessee Volunteers (19-7, 10-4 SEC) will be going against the Missouri Tigers (10-17, 4-10) Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. Let’s go over tonight’s matchup.
Tennessee Powered by Guard Play
Tennessee’s offense has been playing heavy this season. Its four leading scorers are guards. Santiago Vescovi’s leads the Vols with 13.5 points per game. While freshman Kennedy Chandler averages 13.2 points per game. For junior Vescovi, he had a tough Saturday with only seven points while shooting 2-13 from the field.
John Fulkerson is the leading active post scorer with 7.6 points per game. But, the team’s forwards have not been the made vocal point. They faced a tough loss to No. 18 Arkansas last Saturday (58-48) when the Vols only got seven points combined from their forwards. Although a tough loss, Arkansas has been on fire. The Razorbacks have won nine in a row after a slow SEC start. They won 10 of its past 11 games, with a one-point loss at Alabama as the only loss. Because of their playing confidence, this led to Tennessee slipping into a tie with Arkansas for third place in the SEC. They are now just three games ahead of five teams tied at 7-7.
Entering Tuesday, Tennessee hasn’t lost back-to-back games this season. They have strung together multiple winning streaks after losses, including a five-game winning streak between their loss at Texas on Jan. 29 and its loss at Arkansas. Tennessee has two away games against Missouri and Georgia remaining, in which the Tigers and Bulldogs sit at 12th and 14th, respectively, in the SEC. They also has home games against first-place Auburn and Arkansas. In order for the Vols to secure a top-four finish and a double-bye in the SEC Tournament, they need to win two of the four remaining games.
Tuesday night hoops in CoMo.
GAMEDAY » https://t.co/cxndPwEed9 pic.twitter.com/WRdFqk6exo
— Tennessee Basketball (@Vol_Hoops) February 22, 2022
Missouri was originally scheduled to play at Mississippi State on Saturday. But the teams had to make up a postponement from December. The SEC scheduled the makeup game in Columbia for Sunday and moved the Saturday meeting to Friday to accommodate the rescheduled game.
Final Thoughts
In all, both teams are predicted to put up a tough fight. Tennessean, a fan-favored article source for the Vols, wrote “Tennessee 63, Missouri 52: Tennessee has a tough stretch to close SEC play, but starts the four-game run with a road win.” Yahoo!Entertainment also wrote that Tennessee was going to defeat Missouri 73-63 and said, “It’ll be a good first half, but there won’t be any Tiger threes to matter and there won’t be enough free throws to slow down the momentum.”
Tune into the SEC Network at 7 p.m. to see this battle.
