Now that he is starting to find his groove, Tolu Smith is a force that is waiting to be unleashed in the SEC and in March.
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00:00 There are many types of players in the game of basketball.
00:02 Most commonly now you have your three-point shooter, your ball handler, and your defensive anchor.
00:06 Over the passage of time, you know, you'll have different phases of basketball.
00:10 You'll have now is the emergence of three-point shooting and what's taking a back burner is post play.
00:15 Here and there, you'll still have your dominant post players and Mississippi State big man Tullis Smith is one of them.
00:20 Smith is coming off a foot injury and now that he's getting back into the fold of things,
00:23 you can see the sparks of dominance and flashes of brilliance that he possesses.
00:27 And you can tell that with his great footwork and how easily he gets to the paint,
00:31 he's going to score or at least get to the free throw line.
00:33 In back-to-back games against number six Kentucky and Vanderbilt, he scored 26 and 25,
00:38 only a few made free throws away from his career high in 28.
00:42 Coincidentally, Mississippi State in their next game is playing Florida where he scored his career high against them in the SEC tournament last year.
00:49 Smith has talked about in press conferences how he's transformed himself as a player and a person
00:54 after most recently struggling at the free throw line in recent games.
00:58 In the press conferences, he talks about how he knows that he has to be a better player.
01:02 He knows that he has to, one, improve at the free throw line and then once he gets there,
01:07 he knows that the misses can't bother him. He knows that he has to take whatever the bad that he has and whatever he had,
01:13 he has to forget about it and he knows that he needs to be the player that the team needs when crunch time gets there.
01:18 Once he gets his free throw woes under control, who knows what the future holds for Tullis Smith
01:24 and if that's the case, he can be one of the best big man and most dominant post players in the SEC and maybe the country.
01:30 They're me!
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