The Tennessee Basketball Volunteers just finished a five-game stretch of ranked opponents with a 3-2 record. The last game of that stretch, on Wednesday night, saw the Vols score 85 points. It was the first time in conference play that this team scored 80+ points, and it came at the perfect time. However, Tennessee’s defense struggled against Missouri, and the Tigers ended up scoring 81 points, which marks the highest scoring output Tennessee has given up all season. It was nice to see the offense pick up the defense for this Tennessee team for once, and if the Vols can have similar offensive performances during the rest of SEC play,and beyond, this team will become extremely tough to beat.

Chaz Lanier, who leads the Vols in scoring this season, only scored 10 points Wednesday night. If you would have told me Tennessee gave up 81 points and Chaz only scored 10 points I would’ve assumed Tennessee lost by 15-20 points. However, Zakai Ziegler and Igor Milicic performed like All-Americans in their return to the lineup after missing the game 4 days prior versus Florida. Zakai went 4-4 from 3-point range in a 21-point performance. Igor Milicic stuffed the stat sheet full too as he scored 21 points on 8-10 shooting, grabbed 10 rebounds, dished out 5 assists, and added 4 blocks and 2 steals for good measure. Add in solid performances from Gainey/Okpara/Phillips and the Vols had enough to overcome a confident Missouri team.

The only gripe is the inconsistency from this team right now. Imagine if they had the offense clicking against Kentucky last week and down in Auburn where they only mustered 51 points. Rick Barnes touched on it in his postgame comments too as he commented about wanting to know what he’s going to get from his guys at this point in the season. Tennessee still projects as a number one seed right now and sits at 19-4 in the toughest league in the country, but with 5 of the last 8 games being on the road, this team needs to find out what they do best and do it consistently.

Tennessee will head down to Norman this Saturday for a matchup with the Oklahoma Sooners. The Sooners feature many good shooters and are perfectly capable of knocking off a visiting Volunteer squad if they don’t come ready to play.