JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. - Even the highest-scoring game and most clutch performance of his Tennessee basketball career couldn't rescue Detrick Mostella from the verbal jabs of his head coach.
"Did you tell them how you wanted to come out of the game because you had a little cramp?" Rick Barnes quipped to Mostella as he sat down next to him for their postgame interviews.
"We ain't going to talk about that, Coach," Mostella fired back.
Most of the talk about the Volunteers' first game in Johnson City in more than 50 years will be about the mercurial guard, who poured in a career-high 25 points and made three key plays in the final 90 seconds of Tennessee's 72-68 victory over East Tennessee State at a rowdy Freedom Hall on Thursday night.
"Mostella got loose on us," said ETSU coach Steve Forbes, a former assistant coach with the Vols under Bruce Pearl. " He made a couple of those with a hand in his face, too, now. He made big shots."
Tennessee (7-5) would have suffered another defeat to an in-state opponent from the Southern Conference if not for Mostella, who shot 8-of-15 from the field and made all six of his free throws in addition to grabbing seven rebounds and recording one steal, one blocked shot and a pair of assists.
Mostella sank a pair of foul shots to break a 65-all tie with 1:11 to go and came up with a tough rebound in traffic before nailing a contested jumper from the elbow for a 69-65 lead with 29 seconds left.
"One thing's for certain, he's better when he rebounds the ball when he gets into the game," Barnes said.
"Tonight it was really neat hearing those guys before I stepped into the huddle to talk to them. It was amazing how they were talking to each other. They haven't had that all year, where they were talking and encouraging each other. They were terrific. They really were, and that's a sign and that's where we want to go. We need them more vocal."
Tennessee's Detrick Mostella shoots a 3-pointer during the first half of his team's game at East Tennessee State in Johnson City on Dec. 22. Mostella scored 25 as the Vols won 72-68. (Photo By Craig Bisacre/Tennessee Athletics)Mostella's big night began at the end of an intense yet imperfect first half.
The teams were tied at 14 nearly five minutes before halftime when Mostella scored 13 straight Tennessee points with the third of three 3s an NBA-range bomb with a hand in his face just before the buzzer.
"It felt great," Mostella said, "because we wasn't scoring at the time and we needed some offense from somewhere. Luckily, the offense started falling, I started making shots and everybody started getting into their routine. It helped out a lot."
The Vols were 5-of-20 from the field before hitting their final seven shots of the first half, thanks to Mostella, whose previous career high came in a 24-point game last season at Mississippi State.
"We knew he was a great shooter," said ETSU's Desonta Bradford, who had 14 points and eight assists. "He got off to a start. With anybody, if you're a shooter, you make a couple and you're going to keep going."
ETSU (9-3) opened the second half with a 13-4 run to wipe out its 32-23 halftime deficit and set the stage for a tight finish of a game featuring nine ties and 12 lead changes. Many of those were in the final 10 minutes as the teams traded punches.
ETSU made 13 of 19 shots to open the second half, but the Bucs missed all but two of their final nine shots, one of the makes a cosmetic 3 in the final seconds.
Grant Williams had a couple of key blocked shots to help Tennessee's defense down the stretch.
"We just communicated a lot better in the last couple minutes, I'd say," the freshman said. "We really just did a better job rotating and having each other's backs. If I went to block a shot, somebody else would come down and crack my guy. We just did a better job of guarding the ball in the last couple of minutes."
Tennessee scored 22 second-chance points off 17 offensive rebounds to deny ETSU its first win against the Vols since 1991.
"I wasn't looking forward to it," Barnes said. "When we got here this was a game that was scheduled. I have a lot of respect for Steve, and the game last year went down to the last minute. Our guys knew, and I'll go back, I think the schedule that we've played up to his point has helped us.
"We wanted to play a hard schedule and we've learned from it. It was a big day over here, and we had some fans in there, too. To come in here and get it done, I'm happy for our guys."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.