The Southeastern Conference men's basketball tournament will not have a repeat champion.
Tennessee's bid to win consecutive league tourney crowns for the first time in its history was spoiled Friday afternoon by Missouri, as the fourth-seeded Tigers defeated the fifth-seeded Volunteers 79-71 inside Nashville's Bridgestone Arena. Missouri closed the quarterfinal contest on a 10-2 run, evoking memories for the Vols of last Saturday's 79-70 loss at Auburn in which they were outscored 19-7 in the last six minutes.
The Vols will head into NCAA tournament play with a 23-10 record but just 1-2 since sophomore point guard Zakai Zeigler's season-ending knee injury.
"We're still learning how to play without Zakai, and that showed up," Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said in his postgame news conference. "The last four or five minutes of games, we played through him most of the time. We did a lot of ball-screen situations late in the game with him, and we're not doing that as much right now.
"That's probably where we miss him the most, but we're not going to use that as an excuse."
Tennessee and Missouri played to a 69-69 deadlock with two minutes remaining, but the Tigers (24-8) broke free with deep 3-pointers by Nick Honor and D'Moi Hodge. Hodge's 3 at the 1:25 mark made it 75-69 and gave Mizzou its biggest lead to that point, and he would add two free throws with 24 seconds left to account for the eight-point margin.
Hodge scored a game-high 26 points and Kobe Brown added 24 for the Tigers, who shot 30-of-57 from the floor (52.6%).
"They were just hitting shots and executing what they wanted," Vols sophomore guard Jahmai Mashack said. "They took advantage of the matchups they wanted. We pride ourselves on being able to switch and guard the ball, and we have to do that a little better. They executed well and knew exactly what spots they wanted to get to.
"They're a confident team. They know what they're good at and what they're not good at."
Missouri, which had a thrilling 86-85 win over the Vols in Knoxville on Feb. 11, has reached the SEC tournament semifinals for the first time since joining the league in 2012 and will face top-seeded Alabama (27-5) in Saturday's first semifinal at 1 p.m. Eastern on ESPN.
The Vols came up short despite matching Missouri's 10-for-26 showing from 3-point range and despite placing five players in double figures: Santiago Vescovi (17), Tyreke Key (16), Mashack (14), Olivier Nkamhoua (11) and Julian Phillips (10). Vescovi had five of Tennessee's 3-pointers.
Vescovi connected on two of those within the first two minutes to stake Tennessee to a 6-2 lead, and the Vols grabbed their largest first-half advantage at 16-9 on consecutive layups by Key and Mashack. Tennessee took a 33-30 halftime lead after a frenetic final 10 seconds that contained a lengthy 3 by Brown followed by an even lengthier counter from Mashack.
A Vescovi 3 a minute into the second half extended Tennessee's lead to 38-30, but 3-pointers by Hodge, Honor and Brown quickly pulled the Tigers into a 39-39 tie. Mizzou would build a 53-49 lead but abruptly had that erased by consecutive 3-pointers by Key.
Tennessee will learn its postseason destination at 6 p.m. Sunday on the CBS-televised NCAA tournament selection show.
"We're going to be fine," Barnes said. "The biggest prize that we want to go after is still out there."
Odds and ends
Friday marked the first meeting between Tennessee and Missouri in the SEC tournament. ... The Vols fell to 11-11 all-time in Bridgestone Arena.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.