The second trip to the state of Mississippi for the Tennessee's men's basketball team went almost exactly like the first one.
It actually might have been a worse nightmare this time.
The inability to maintain leads again came back to bite the Volunteers on Saturday. They threw away a 19-point first-half lead with a brutal second-half performance in a 64-59 Southeastern Conference loss at Mississippi State.
"I'm very disappointed," Vols coach Rick Barnes told the Vol Network after the loss, "but when you get outrebounded the way we got out outrebounded, when you turn the ball over the way we turned it over, when you miss free throws the way we missed free throws - you don't deserve to win."
Riding a four-game winning streak, Tennessee (13-10, 5-5) threatened to run the Bulldogs (14-8, 5-5) out of their own building by jumping out to leads of 17-2 and 24-8. But Mississippi State whittled its 19-point deficit down to a dozen in the final 4:47 of the first half.
Tennessee's Admiral Schofield is fouled by Mississippi State's Xavian Stapleton in the first half of the game between the Vols and Bulldogs in Starkville on Feb. 4, 2017. (Photo by Craig Bisacre/Tennessee Athletics)The Vols led 41-23 on a Grant Williams 3-point basket with 17:50 remaining, and though they were teetering badly by then, they managed to take an 11-point lead into the final 10 minutes.
In six minutes Mississippi State took a four-point lead with an 18-3 run capped by back-to-back 3s by Xavian Stapleton and Mario Kegler.
Jordan Bone and Jordan Bowden scored to bring the Vols to within 60-59 in the final minute, but Stapleton tipped in Schnider Herard's second miss following a pair of offensive rebounds and the Vols clanked two looks at a tying 3.
"We had control of the game the whole first half," Bone told the Vol Network after scoring a team-high 13 points, "but in the second half they just kind of kicked our butt."
In the second half, Tennessee shot 33 percent (10-of-30) with four assists, allowed MSU to score 11 points off eight turnovers and finished minus-14 in rebounding as the Bulldogs tallied 19 second-chance points on 21 offensive rebounds.
Tennessee also shot 10-of-22 from the free-throw line and missed eight foul shots in the first half.
The Bulldogs won despite shooting 31 percent from the field and missing 16 free throws.
"We didn't deserve to win," Barnes said. "We didn't put up enough fight. They were just coming off a little screen across the base line and throwing the ball inside. Any time you give up 21 offensive rebounds, it tells you what you need to know. We had 14 turnovers, and in the first half we shouldn't have turned it over at all.
"We had a chance in the first half with free throws to really push (the lead) out there, but you've got to give (the Bulldogs) credit. They stayed with it. They fought, and when things weren't going our way, we didn't respond very well."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.