Tennessee managed to do something on Wednesday night against Mississippi State that they weren’t able to do against Kentucky — escape after seeing a big lead dwindle down.

Four days after blowing a 14-point halftime lead against Kentucky — the largest halftime comeback win at home in the Wildcats’ era at Rupp Arena — Tennessee found themselves with a commanding 63-40 lead over the Bulldogs in Starkville halfway through the second half.

And once again, the Vols found themselves scrambling to hold onto the lead after Mississippi State went on a frantic 18-0 run to cut the lead to 63-58 with six minutes left in the game.

Fortunately, for Tennessee, they were able to hang on this time, with a pair of Nate Ament and-ones helping to stem the tide and allow the Vols to regain control of the game. Tennessee would escape 73-64.

After the game, Rick Barnes addressed the media, and he talked about the late Mississippi State run that made the game far closer than it should have been.

Rick Barnes says Tennessee’s concentration lapsed and that ‘they were shocked’ at the run

“That’s the one thing I talked to them, I said, ‘how do we let that happen,’” Barnes said. “For this team, they had an eighteen-oh run. They were shocked. You can’t turn the ball over, give the ball to them out front. We had some open shots that you’ve got to make, but you put it all together, we just went through a period where I thought we let up. Yeah, you’re always concerned. Chris Jans is a terrific coach, and his guys aren’t going to quit on him. They’ve got some guys, they make some threes. We left one of their better three-point shooters open twice. 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.”

Barnes was asked next if this falloff was more disappointing with this happening the game after blowing a 14-point halftime lead to Kentucky in Lexington.

“Yeah, it is, because they’re saying and we’re talking about all the right things in the huddle. But it’s one thing coming out. But you can’t, like, Nate (Ament) got to it taken away from him. Troy (Henderson) got it taken away from him out there. Fee (Felix Okpara) doesn’t understand what we’re trying to do one time, and it gets us discombobbled. Just things like that. But still defensively, I thought Bishop really worked hard tonight on a really difficult player to guard (Josh Hubbard). But we still got to get more protection at the rim out of J.P. (Estrella) and probably more him than anybody. 

“But we’re letting guys get down the lane on us, and we fouled. We came out early — I think it was six to one in fouls. And we’ve got to come out, just, again, it wasn’t going to be easy. They’ve been in a lot of games here, and it’s a good win for us and on to the next.”

This is becoming a scary trend for this Tennessee team. They blew leads of 17 and 14 points in losses to Kentucky this season. Now, they can add allowing an 18-0 run to their list.

And Barnes is right. This is a concentration thing. Letting their foot off the gas. While they’ve gotten better on the offensive end in recent weeks, thanks in large part to Ament’s continued improvement, being able to hang onto a lead is paramount in March for success.

Tennessee has less than a month left until postseason play arrives. If they can’t figure out the right mindset to hold for 40 game minutes by then, it will likely be a short run for this Tennessee team in March.

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