Tennessee vs Missouri Odds, Pick: Back the Veteran Squad

No. 5 Tennessee and Missouri will meet in Columbia on Tuesday night for a midweek matchup in the SEC.

The Volunteers are in the hunt for the SEC regular-season title, trailing No. 13 Alabama by one game coming into this one. Meanwhile, the Tigers have had a disappointing year, and they are still looking for their first conference victory.

This is a big spread for a league game, but I’m not sure you can make the odds big enough on the visitors in this spot.

This type of winning is nothing new for the Vols under veteran coach Rick Barnes. A victory here would be their 20th of the season, a mark they've hit five times in seven years under Barnes. It would also be Barnes’ 24th as a Division I head coach, moving him into a tie for 13th on the all-time leaderboard alongside Jim Calhoun and Kelvin Sampson.

The Volunteers are a mix of veteran players with a new star. One of the key returnees is Santiago Vescovi, who just became the 19th player in school history to tally 1,500 career points.

However, the player stealing all of the headlines is Dalton Knecht. His 25 points per game in SEC play is only beaten by the nation’s leading scorer, Denver’s Tommy Bruner (25.7 PPG), for scoring in conference games.

Add in the fact that Knecht is shooting over 50% from the field, and he is firmly in the SEC Player of the Year conversation.

After leading the program to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season, coach Dennis Gates was hoping to carry that momentum into the 2023-24 season, but it has not gone to plan.

One of the primary issues for Missouri in league action has been shooting from beyond the arc. In the last 13 games, the Tigers have made just 28.4% of their 3-pointers, a decrease of nearly 8% from their first 11 games.

Even in the struggles, Tamar Bates has been solid in SEC play. The junior guard leads the Tigers with 19 points per game, which only trails Jabari Brown’s 20.7 points per game in the 2013-14 campaign for best scoring average by a Missouri player in the SEC.

Gates will need Bates and multiple others to step up if his team want to get its first conference win here.

Admittedly, I don’t love laying this many points with a road team in conference games, but I don’t believe the spread is big enough here.

My best bet is to take Tennessee -12.5, which I would play to -14.5. I also don’t hate a look at the Vols going over their team total of anything around 80 or better.

The Tigers have been worse at home compared to on the road in SEC play. They have losses to Georgia and Arkansas to go along with heavy defeats to Florida, Texas A&M and Mississippi State at Mizzou Arena.

The results are backed up by the advanced metrics. At home in league action, BartTorvik has Missouri 13th out of 14 SEC teams in adjusted efficiency and points per possession on both offense and defense.

Meanwhile, the Vols have been known to beat up the weak teams in the conference. They covered this same spread in wins at Vanderbilt and Arkansas while also defeating LSU by 20 at home.

One worry would be that Tennessee could be looking ahead to the rematch spot against Texas A&M, but I trust this veteran squad to not slip up here on the road.

Pick: Tennessee -12.5 (Play to -14.5)