Looking back, it’s easy to feel sympathy for David Idada.
Southeast Missouri State’s center watched Mark Mitchell dribble across half-court, hunkered in a defensive stance, and waited in the slot gap on the left side of the floor. Trailing Missouri by three with 80 seconds left, the Redhawks needed a stop. And Idada thought he was the man to deliver it.
The optimism proved misguided.
Coach Dennis Gates didn’t call out a set. Like everybody else inside Mizzou Arena, he watched the Tigers spread the court,
and Mitchell patiently pounded out dribbles and sized up Idada. All Mitchell needed was a slight bit of hesitation, a low crossover, and a long stride to breeze past Idada and kiss a gentle layup off the glass.
Yet Idada isn’t an outlier. He’s part of a long list of defenders who’ve struggled to corral MU’s four-man. And in most cases, Mitchell’s rim finishing hasn’t required exotic design or clever sequencing.
It’s been powered by space. When MU spreads the floor, and help is distant, he thrives. When it shrinks, his efficiency disappears. That contrast matters now more than ever, because Illinois is built to shrink driving lanes and seal off the paint. And how effectively MU preserves room for Mitchell on Monday may say as much about its offensive identity as anything else this season.
Heading into Monday’s clash, the senior could present a compelling case as the nation’s best rim finisher. Through a dozen games, Mitchell has averaged more than seven point-blank attempts, which are worth 1.539 points, per Synergy Sports data. We can also graph volume and efficiency for every Division-I player who has seen action in more than 10 games.
Mitchell resides with a group of players at the leading edge in the upper-left quadrant. Moreover, we can isolate other high-major players who routinely gorge on point-blank looks. Those names are spelled out in the table below.
What kind of schematic complexity has been required to tee Mitchell up for success?
Truthfully, not much.
Often, MU only needs rudimentary five-out spacing as a tool. When the Tigers get the ball popping and catch opponents scrambling to set their defense, it’s relatively easy for Mitchell to find a favorable mismatch. He’s quick enough to drive by low-major centers. Quite often, those defenders aren’t much taller than Mitchell, making it easy to finish over wall-ups. And if he draws a guard, Mitchell can bump them off on straight-line drives.
When spacing alone doesn’t gin up opportunity, the next step is equally straightforward: run a ball screen. Mitchell attacks gaps after reversals. He can roll into post-ups. Pick-and-rolls on an empty side of the floor let him drive without fear of a help defender. And after setting a screen, he can slip or pop to receive a pass and put the ball on the floor.
Only a handful of Mitchell’s successful forays to the cup have come from triangle-inspired sets that link multiple actions and change sides of the floor. Those possessions often let him operate from favored areas – the top of the key, the elbow or on the left block.
Of course, skeptics also have a relatively easy rebuttal in the quality of MU’s slate. The Tigers’ non-conference docket ranks 361st in Division I, including four teams rated lower than No. 310. Those teams also share a similar profile. Their rosters are undersized, play at an up-tempo pace, and rely on chaotic defenses designed to generate turnovers.
Unsurprisingly, those traits mean that none of the low-majors Mitchell has encountered rank better than No. 182 in defending the cup. Four of them – South Carolina State, South Dakota, Cleveland State, and Alabama State – all sit below No. 300, per Synergy data. Meanwhile, Minnesota and Notre Dame grade out as merely adequate.
So, Mitchell and his compatriots have routinely had optimal conditions to hunt for buckets on the break or isolate matchups in the half-court. It wasn’t until the Border War that Mitchell met an imposing frontline around the restricted area. He went 0 of 6 at the rack against a set Kansas defense.
However, there’s also a case that the Tigers’ personnel groupings made for tougher sledding. We’ve already explored how Shawn Phillips’ presence on the floor can sometimes crimp spacing. The confines can get tighter when MU deploys a jumbo lineup that slides Mitchell up the positional ladder to the wing.
Reviewing Mitchell’s rim attacks against high-major opponents addresses those issues. For example, his drives are worth just 0.400 points when Phillips mans the post. By contrast, he’s averaged 1.857 points per shot when Luke Northweather plays the five. Now, that encompasses just 14 possessions across three games, but looking back at film is also helpful.
Schematically, MU kept its sets straightforward, relying on four-out spacing and ball screens to access gaps. But as we’ve noted before, it’s also been routine for power-conference foes to shrink the floor, and having Phillips looming in the dunker spot means an opposing big man loiters near the restricted area.
By contrast, look at how the space below the free-throw line changes once Northweather checks in. Mitchell has ample room to abuse smaller defenders on drives from the slot, make clean catches in short rolls, and doesn’t have a help defender collapsing down on post pins. And even though he comes up empty, watch how Mitchell faces up and attacks defenders on a vacated side of the floor on inbounds plays.
That contrast might be pivotal against the Illini.
During his tenure in Champaign, coach Brad Underwood evolved away from a defense predicated on creating turnovers. His rationale? That style didn’t travel well against Big Ten opponents, resulting in too many easy layups and foul calls. Over the past three seasons, Illinois embraced a more conservative approach – parking defenders in gaps, relying on drop coverage in ball screens, forcing contested two-point jumpers and crashing the glass.
As you’ve seen, compressing the floor makes matters tricky for Mitchell. And giving him breathing room will be imperative. Providing it might also require a counterintuitive approach.
While the Illini’s roster features a pair of 7-footers in the Ivisic brothers, neither of them is a traditional low-post operator. Instead, they’re more inclined to play outside the lane, often as floor spacers getting shots from pick-and-pops. Those preferences negate the need to slide heavy minutes to a backline anchor like Phillips.
Instead, opponents that picked off Illinois have used big men with enough mobility to play in space. It achieved two objectives. First, Alabama, UConn and Nebraska utilized more aggressive ball-screen coverages, taking away attack angles and passing reads from Kylan Boswell while having the agility to recover back to one of the Ivisic brothers. And offensively, those bigs could either space the floor by holding a corner or popping after setting screens.
The Illini struggled when the Crimson Tide and Cornhuskers knocked down enough shots to pull them out of gaps, including their bigs, and limit three-point attempts. It also generates the kind of double-gaps and crossmatches Mitchell needs to get in a groove. And you won’t be surprised to learn that almost 60 percent of Mitchell’s buckets at the rim have come when Jacob Crews runs the wing, and Northweather plays the five.
Leveraging that opportunity, though, might require a step MU has been reticent to take – starting Northweather.
It’s not entirely without risk, but there’s a scenario where his presence alters the floor’s geometry. At the same time, MU runs Crews off screening action to drill early jumpers, forcing Underwood into an early decision. Sometimes, he inserts Ben Humrichous, who is 6-foot-6, at the hybrid spot while sliding Mirkovic down to the five in a small-ball lineup that can better navigate space.
That adjustment might also present chances for Mitchell, who is 6-foot-8 and 235 pounds, to isolate Mirkovic, Humrichous, and wing Andrej Stojakovic. An early indicator that the Illini are in peril is when Underwood starts quickly churning through his substitution pattern in search of solutions.
Mitchell’s success isn’t happenstance, and it hasn’t resulted from innovation.
It flows forth from simplicity – space, straightforward reads, and tilting the floor just enough to give him an advantage. The Illini are oriented to erase them. Yet MU might not need an elaborate response. Leaning into what it does well isn’t complex. It just entails commitment.
And the result could be a big night for Mitchell – and potentially a Quad-1 win on Missouri’s team sheet.
