Mark WiedmerKNOXVILLE - Sometime early Friday afternoon, Garrett Medenwald - the University of Tennessee strength and conditioning coach for men's basketball - approached head coach Rick Barnes about the physical condition of his Volunteers.
"Coach, the guys are really sore," Medenwald said about the players following a particularly rough Thursday practice.
Replied Barnes: "They should have played harder the other night (at Ole Miss)."
Sore or not, Rick's Runts played exceptionally hard Saturday night against Mississippi State, whipping the visitors by an exceedingly comfortable 91-74 score following a nervous 37-34 halftime lead.
The makes Tennessee 10-9 overall and 3-4 in the Southeastern Conference heading into Tuesday night's visit from No. 5 Kentucky and may finally ease the burning and ringing in the Vols' ears from their coach's anger.
"I can't tell you what I said to them," Barnes replied to a question about his halftime message. "But they responded."
Did they ever. After the Bulldogs scored the first four points of the second half to lead 38-37, Tennessee went on a 15-4 run to lead 52-42 with 16:02 to go on a Robert Hubbs III jumper, which were two of his game-high 19 points. Mississippi State never drew closer than six the rest of the way and was never within single digits over the final 12:22.
Hubbs and his teammates clearly were not going to allow a repeat of last Tuesday in the state of Mississippi, when a 13-point second-half Tennessee lead became an 80-69 loss.
"They may be one of the shortest teams in the country," MSU coach Ben Howland said of the Vols, "but they're very tough physically. Just look at their bodies. They're wide, they're physical, they're athletic."
Indeed, according to stats guru Ken Pomeroy, Tennessee's average roster height of 6-foot-3 is shorter than all but 51 Division I teams among the NCAA's 351 participating schools. Beyond that, the Vols rank 335th out of 351 schools when it comes to roster experience with freshmen accounting for 46.6 percent of minutes played.
And most of those figures were calculated before junior guard Detrick Mostella was dismissed on Jan. 10. That decision left Barnes with just two upperclassmen, seniors Lew Evans and Hubbs, on the roster.
No wonder when he was asked to describe his team a shade more than halfway through the season, Barnes answered, "One word: inconsistent."
On Tuesday they play the most consistent team in the SEC to date in Kentucky, which also just happens to be the only team without a league loss, the Wildcats standing 7-0 after Saturday's 85-69 win over South Carolina, which previously was undefeated in conference action.
Of course, the Vols figure to see a different Cats team than the one that roared out to a 19-6 advantage over the Gamecocks on the strength of freshman point guard DeAaron Fox's blazing speed. Suffering a right ankle injury less than eight minutes into the game that sent him to the locker room, then had him return in warmups and on crutches, Fox seems unlikely to play against the Vols.
And while UK finally pulled it out, it wasn't before the Gamecocks closed to within 37-34 late in the opening half as the Cats struggled to hold on to the basketball.
Also, lest anyone forget, Kentucky led Tennessee by 21 inside the Boling Alley last season before losing 84-77.
"We're going to see what this team is made of," said the Vols' Admiral Schofield, who scored 15 points, pulled down seven rebounds and blocked a shot in 17 amazingly productive minutes. "We've got to attack (UK) like they're just another team."
A year ago, they did just that, coming to life against a Wildcats squad that was softer inside than this year's model but arguably tougher on the perimeter if Fox indeed sits this one out.
"We're starting to get on the right path," Schofield said. "We're starting to learn our roles. But last year we had great leadership from (graduated seniors) Kevin Punter and Amari Moore. Hubbs and I have to take over that role now and make sure we understand how important this week is."
A sign of how much they're starting to do what's asked of them: Told by Barnes they must fight for every rebound, the Vols pounded MSU on the boards by a 49-35 count.
Said Schofield of that statistic: "If the ball came off the rim, we grabbed it."
Nineteen games along, Barnes still isn't sure he can put his hands on what makes his young, undersized Vols stop or go when it matters most.
"To be brutally honest," he said when asked about the UK game, "I don't know what to expect."
The good news for the Vols is that if Fox doesn't play, the Cats probably won't know what to expect, either.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com