Missouri and Kansas State took the court for an exhibition basketball game Friday night, late. The tip off wasn’t until 9:00pm so you’ll forgive me if this is brief.
Mizzou won the game 100-91. Here is
the game sheet from StatBroadcast:
I said before the game for people to not read too much into any results. So any takeaways you have from this game are going to be general by nature. Both teams played a LOT of players. Mizzou went 12 deep, and didn’t go further because there was nobody else to go with. Trent Pierce is out, dealing with an undisclosed lower leg body injury. For what it’s worth it didn’t sound too serious. And we know Trent Burns is still out recovering from surgery to repair a stress fracture in his foot.
So what did we learn?
Ant looks for real
Heading into the season the knowns on the roster were a lot fewer than the unknowns. But one of the knowns was Anthony Robinson II. Ant was great last year, but he was still young and could run into some mistakes by playing a little too aggressively defensively and getting himself into foul trouble. But if you were wondering if there was another level with which he could play, the answer is yes.
Ant looked like you hoped he would look. He was 6-6 from the floor, 1-1 from 3FG, 3-5 at the line, 4 assists in just 23 minutes. Oh and when he was in he hounded PJ Haggerty, one of the best offensive players in the country.
He was also +16 when he was on the floor. Plus-Minus can be a dubious stat, but there was one best player on the floor and it was Anthony Robinson.
Mark Mitchell was swamped offensively
At one point in the first half, I looked up when Mark Mitchell had received an entry pass on the block, and there were three Wildcats around him. He also took a nasty fall and left the game ne’er to return. The potential for injury is cause for concern, but until we hear differently I’m going to assume the benching was precautionary. There’s no need to expose your star player to any more basketball than is necessary.
Shawn Phillips is very big and tall and can jump high
I will still have questions about his feasibility defensively against a real front court until proven otherwise but I see why the coaches are excited. He’s so big and athletic and jumps so high and the dunks! The dunks are easy.
Shooting concerns were not put to bed
Granted, one of the better shooters wasn’t playing. But the Tigers only shot 6-22 from 3FG which isn’t great! I would pump the brakes just a little bit on the concern since Jayden Stone was 2-7 from deep, and I honestly don’t know how many games that will happen this season. 7 attempts is a lot of attempts. Robinson had just one attempt (he really needs to find more attempts if he’s going to be ~40% shooter), and Jacob Crews was 1-5. So your “best shooter” had a bad night and another top shooter only took one shot. Read into it if you want. I don’t think Mizzou will be a bad shooting team, but I also don’t think they will be a good shooting one. They just need to find a way to be decent.
Offensively the path is at the rim
I’ll preface to say I think K-State will be okay this year. A good season for this squad will likely find them in and around the bubble. They’re really going to rely on PJ Haggerty to run offense, and the inside for the Wildcats is going to be a problem, if last night is any indicator. Mizzou feasted at the rim. The Tigers had 54 points in the paint, 26 points at the free throw line. StatBroadcast clocked them for 15-21 at the rim and 5-5 on dunks.
That is the key for Missouri this season. Getting to the rim, and then getting to the line. They have the bodies to do it.
